After Good Bad Ugly, Dude Faces Heat from Ilaiyaraaja

Maestro and legendary composer Ilayaraja has not been sparing any movie which has references to his iconic songs. He is having no second thoughts to file lawsuits on producers in Courts over unauthorised use of his works in their films. He has been doing this for the last few years and several filmmakers have already paid him compensation over infringement of copyrights. Even music labels which hold the audio rights of his songs are also facing legal battles with him. 

Recently, Ajith’s latest outing Good Bad Ugly also faced a similar situation for using Ilayaraja’s songs in the film. The Madras High Court has restrained the Mythri Movie Makers, the production house behind Ajith Kumar-starrer Good Bad Ugly, from exhibiting, screening, selling, distributing, publishing or broadcasting the movie on any platform, including OTT, along with three songs composed by acclaimed musician R. Ilaiyaraaja for other movies between 1982 and 1996. 

Now, Mythri Movie Makers latest offering Dude, starring Pradeep Ranganathan, also landed in legal trouble as Ilayaraja filed a case against Sony Music for using two of his old songs. He filed a petition in Madras High Court claiming that his copyright rights had been violated by the team.

The Court has now granted Ilaiyaraaja permission to pursue the case. The advocate representing Ilaiyaraaja, said that Sony has not yet filed a response and that his songs are still being used without permission in the film ‘Dude’. 

Ilaiyaraaja has now been granted permission to file a case against the ‘Dude’ film. The hearing has been scheduled to continue on the 19th of next month due to the pending case in the Supreme Court as Sony Music was directed by the apex court to submit the income statements earned from the commercial use of his songs. 

Ilayaraja has been waging a strong battle over illegal use of his songs for commercial purposes without paying any royalty to him. It seems like he wants to set a strong legal precedent and make sure that his songs are not used without offering him any remuneration. 

Meanwhile, Dude is marching towards the 100 Crores mark.