Sony Music moves Bombay High Court against Ilaiyaraaja Music company alleging copyright infringement

Sony Music Entertainment India Pvt Ltd (Sony) has approached the Bombay High Court in a suit seeking permanent injunction against Ilaiyaraaja Music N Management Pvt Ltd (IMMPL) from infringing Sony's copyright in sound recordings..In December 2021, Sony noticed that a portion of the songs over which it had acquired copyright from Echo Recording Company Pvt Ltd. was available on YouTube and IMMPL had begun to broadcast and distribute the same to public.Sony claimed in the suit that 228 title albums out of the 536 titles where made available to the public infringing Sony’s copyright.When Sony complained about the same to IMMPL, they received information that IMMPL was claiming ownership over those recordings. Despite trying to have personal meetings with the Director of IMMPL, they continued to make false assertions about the claims and continued publishing on social media platforms.In these circumstances, Sony claimed that IMMPL are infringing their copyright.“The use and dealing of the copyrighted work of Sony by IMMPL is without any authority or consent of Sony,” the plaint filed through VVJ Law Partners stated..In view of this, Sony prayed for the following reliefs:IMMPL be restrained by a perpetual order and injunction from directly or indirectly manufacturing, selling, distributing, publishing the sound recordings specified in the suit; andIMMPL to pay ₹1.5 crore to Sony as damages with interest of 10% per annum from date of filing of suit. In its interim application, Sony prayed for temporary injunction order during pendency of the suit.The interim application was listed today before single-judge Justice RI Chagla who posted it for hearing on March 31..The manner in which the copyright came to be acquired by Sony was as follows:One Echo Recording Company Pvt Ltd acquired copyright in the sound recordings from various producers of movies which included musical works written and composed by Ilaiyaraaja. It included 536 title albums.Thus, Echo became the absolute owner of copyright with respect to sound recordings over which the producers had earlier held ownership/ copyright.Echo entered into an assignment agreement with one Oriental Records USA thereby assigning all ownership rights to them.After this, through a Catalogue Acquisition Agreement, Sony Music acquired absolute exclusive assignment from Oriental of those sound recordings. IMMPL then approached the Madras High Court claiming adverse right, title and interest in respect of 310 songs. The Madras High Court rejected all the claims by Ilaiyaraaja except for the moral rights over the literary and musical work written or composed by him.It held that Echo was the legal owner of the sound recordings and was entitled to exploit the same.After acquiring the substantial copyrighted works from Echo, Sony entered into a confidentiality agreement with IMMPL to purchase their remaining repertoire.During such talks, Sony stated that they intended to exploit the acquired copyrighted works through various modes and mediums including digital distribution.However, in December 2021, Sony discovered that the Echo repertoire was available on YouTube and the defendants had started broadcasting, distributing and communicating it to the public. Out of the 536 titles, 115 are available on YouTube alone while a total of 228 have been illegally broadcast and communicated to the public, the suit said.