Overview

• Justice N. Senthilkumar directed Sony Music to file a day-by-day revenue statement from broadcasting and telecasting Ilaiyaraaja’s works and to produce a full statement of accounts at the next hearing on October 22.
• Ilaiyaraaja asserts autonomous authorship and continuing ownership and moral rights over his compositions, alleging remastering, added beats, and other distortions promoted on digital platforms.
• His counsel invoked moral-rights protections to argue that modifications prejudicial to reputation can be restrained or lead to damages even after any assignment.
• Sony’s counsel cited a rights chain from Echo Recording’s catalogue of 118 films to Oriental Records and then to Sony, relying on pre-2012 producer-ownership principles to contest Ilaiyaraaja’s claims.
• The court flagged whether film producers were parties to earlier monetisation restraints and whether agreements exist with the composer, as Sony sought time to file a detailed counter and noted related cases, including one listed in Bombay on October 16.