The Madras High Court, on Wednesday (September 24, 2025), directed music composer R. Ilaiyaraaja to implead Sony Music as one of the respondents to a civil suit filed by him against the producers of Ajith Kumar-starrer Good Bad Ugly (GBU) for using three of his old songs in the movie without his consent.

Justice N. Senthilkumar felt that it was necessary to implead Sony Music since the Telangana-based production firm Mythri Movie Makers had claimed to have obtained the rights for using one of the songs – En Jodi Manja Kuruvi from the 1986 Kamal Haasan movie Vikram – from Sony Music.

The judge also allowed an impleading petition filed by Music Master Audio Video LLP which had purchased the rights for the song Otha Ruba Tharen from the producers of the 1996 movie Nattupura Pattu, featuring actor Sivakumar, about 30 years ago, and therefore permitted it to be used in GBU.

Similarly, the judge took note that a counsel representing yet another music label too had submitted across the Bar that his client too would file an impleading petition on the ground that it holds the rights for the third song Ilamai Idho Idho from the 1982 flick Sakalakala Vallavan, also starring Mr. Haasan.

The judge directed the High Court Registry to list the suit next on October 16 and extended an interim injunction which he had already granted on September 9, 2025 restraining Mythri Movie Makers from exhibiting, screening, selling, distributing, publishing or broadcasting GBU on any platform with the three contentious songs.

Though senior counsel P.V. Balasubramaniam, representing the production firm, insisted on vacating the injunction on the ground that Mr. Ilaiyaraaja had not produced any document to show that he had retained the copyright for the three songs; the musician’s advocate A. Saravanan opposed the plea.

The lawyer told the court that GBU was taken down from Netflix temporarily after the grant of the interim injunction, but it was now back on the OTT platform after replacing three contentious songs with other songs. Therefore, there was no dire urgency to vacate the interim injunction, he claimed.

After hearing all sides, the judge decided to take a further call on the matter on October 16 and requested the counsel to enlighten him on the latest rulings on the subject of copyright over music compositions. “In the fight between all of you, the ultimate sufferers are the music lovers,” the judge said.