COIMBATORE: A lawyer on Saturday lodged a complaint with the city police commissioner, seeking action against the proprietor of a CD firm for commercialising composer Ilaiyaraaja’s music by uploading his songs on the internet and releasing them as CDs.
In his complaint, advocate S
Sivasami said Anthony
Muthusamy had been producing and releasing CD with Ilaiyaraaja’s songs under the label Honey Bee Music and also releasing them online without musician’s permission. “He has been using Ilaiyaraaja’s name in his email ID without my client’s (
Ilaiyaraaja) permission. Also he mixes other music with Ilaiyaraaja’s songs in DTS format and releases them,” the compliant read. Sivasami asked the commissioner to seize the CDs released by Muthusamy, freeze his bank accounts and seize the money he had earned by using Ilaiyaraaja’s name.
Sivasamy told TOI that Ilaiyaraaja’s advocate from Chennai had asked him to file the complaint with the commissioner.
In complaint, as released by Sivasami, Ilaiyaraaja had said Muthusamy had been “[...] cheating everyone saying remastering my music in DTS format.” (sic) The music composer had also asked the commissioner to take “severe action against Muthusamy on considering the case merit and also recover the money collected...”
When contacted Muthusamy, who runs Honey Bee Music on Addis Street, Gray Town, said he had entered into an agreement with Ilaiyaraaja to enhance his songs as part of a project to create a physical repository of his songs. “But they had given me licence for the songs only for one year, while it took almost one-and-a-half years to complete the production itself,” he said.
Muthusamy said he had enhanced Ilaiyaraaja’s songs and had been giving them as CDs to his fans as he wanted to uphold Ilaiyaraaja’s fame.
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