Chennai: A group of film producers has approached the Madras high court to declare that the producers of the films are the absolute owners of the copyright of the films including the rights over the songs featuring in the films both audio and visual in which Ilayaraja is the music director.
In their suits, P.T. Selvakumar and R.Chandrasekar and four other producers also sought to declare that the producers having the rights of distribution, exhibition, exploitation rights, inclusive musical scores in the films and the songs thereof and all other artistic and technical outputs contained in the films for perpetual period.
According to them, Illayaraja cannot assert that he was the owner of the copyright of the songs contained in the films produced by various producers, whose cause, they were espousing as fellow producers, where Illayaraja has participated as music director on a fixed remuneration.
It was the producer who after fixing the director and after getting his advice, fixes the artists and the technicians including the music director. It has been the practice for over 80 years in Indian Cinema Industry. The technical works, the artist performance and the musical works has not been independently claimed by any of the technician or artist or musician for the works done by them in the films since they have performed in the course of their employment for a fixed remuneration and the producer has always been the first owner of the copyright in the films inclusive of all rights contained therein, they added.
They said Illayaraja has been claiming he was the owner of the copyright of the songs scored by him in the films where he has participated as the music director. If this action of Illayaraja continued to go unabated then the hero of the film will claim ownership of the copyright in respect of the scenes he has acted, so will the comedian in the film, the director will claim ownership of the copyright in the film so far as his work was concerned and so will every technician and artist do so and the poor film producer who invested enormous money will go high and dry, they added.
