Ilaiyaraaja, the legendary composer, has composed music for over 1000 movies some of which were reused in recent movies. This didn't go down well with the composer and he is busy sending legal copyright notices to the producers of those movies that used songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja reportedly without his consent. Ilaiyaraaja has also filed a petition in the Madras High Court to refrain filmmakers from using his songs in their movies without proper permission.

This practice by Ilaiyaraaja has turned into a debate within the industry. Mark Antony producer Vinod Kumar, is one of the first ones, to pick a side and share his opinion.

Vinod Kumar stands against Ilaiyaraaja over copyright claims

Taking to his X handle, Kumar replied to a post shared by an industry tracker Amutha Bharathi and said that Ilaiyaraaja has no rights over the songs or his works "once he takes money for the work". He added, "There should be an end of this , court should step in and give a ‘once for all’ order on this !! The song is created for the particular film and the film producer has given money for producing the song."

Vinod Kumar's bold statement has come after Ilaiyaraaja sent a legal copyright notice to Manjummel Boys producers for "unauthorised use" of his song Kanmani Anbodu from Kamal Haasan starrer Gunaa.

Manjummel Boys producer Shawn Antony reacts to copyright claims

Shawn Antony told The News Minute that they had acquired the rights from two music companies who own the song. "One of the companies holds the rights for the Telugu version, and the other for the remaining languages. We got rights from Pyramid and Sreedevi Sounds, the music companies which own the song," Shawn added. The producer further said that they not only acquired the song in Tamil but also other languages.

Before Manjummel Boys, Ilaiyaraaja had sent a legal notice to Coolie director Lokesh Kanagaraj over the song Disco.