The Delhi high court has issued an ad interim injunction order barring music composer Ilaiyaraaja from exploiting, licensing or claiming ownership over music from 134 films pending the final outcome, in a copyright dispute with Saregama India Ltd. The films covered under the injunction include some celebrated titles in Tamil cinema including Annakkili, 16 Vayathinile, Kavikkuyil, Bharathi, Pallavi Anu Pallavi, Mullum Malarum, Raaja Paarvai, Netrikkann and Kalyanaraman.
The dispute started in January this year, when Ilaiyaraaja issued a legal notice asserting ownership over the musical works he had composed, arranged and orchestrated across his film career, including titles which Saregama had been licensing commercially for decades. Within weeks, Saregama discovered that the music director had been uploading several of his songs to digital streaming services, including Amazon Music, iTunes and JioSaavn, while also approaching third parties with licensing offers for the same content. Saregama argued that it has held the copyright over these recordings and the underlying musical and literary works through a series of assignment agreements with the original film producers and it, therefore, filed a commercial suit in the Delhi high court in February 2026 to stop the unauthorised exploitation of its catalogue.
Saregama’s argument suggests that a film producer commissions a composer to create music in exchange for payment and so the producer becomes the first owner of the resulting copyright. Under this set-up, the music director’s contribution does not give him independent ownership right in the music unless the parties had specifically agreed in writing that it would.