Delhi High Court rules against Ilaiyaraaja in copyright battle with Saregama

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About Ilaiyaraaja and Saregama’s legal battle

The dispute traces back to January 2026, when Ilaiyaraaja issued a formal legal notice asserting ownership over the musical works he had composed, arranged and orchestrated across his film career, including titles that Saregama had been licensing commercially for decades.

Within weeks, Saregama discovered that the composer had begun uploading several of these songs to digital streaming services including Amazon Music, iTunes and JioSaavn, while simultaneously approaching third parties with licensing offers for the same content. Saregama argued 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 thus, they 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 framework, the composer’s contribution does not generate an independent ownership right in the music unless the parties specifically agreed in writing that it would.

Saregama contends that the producers who commissioned Ilaiyaraaja to compose music for the 134 films in question held the copyright under this provision, and subsequently transferred those rights to Saregama through formal assignment agreements, making it the current and legitimate owner of the catalogue spanning works created between 1976 and 2007.