Legal advisor Pradeep Kumar of ace music director Ilaiyaraja had sent a legal notice to the famous karaoke app Smule in a dispute over the illegal use of the composer’s songs. The famous app allows any user to lend his voice for famous songs over the karaoke provided by the app. Some celebrities including the likes of Charlie Puth also have accounts in Smule.
Advocate representing Ilaiyaraja voiced that the app has not taken permission of any kind from the composer over usage of the songs. Legendary music director has been composing songs since 1976. It is to be noted that the composer has more than 6000 songs and 1000 movies to his filmography credit. In the year 2015 he made a similar statement that limited the radio stations and other streaming companies from playing his song without any kind of permission.
Pradeep Kumar also quoted the fact that Smule is a big company for whom India would prove to be a great market. If similar incident had happened in other countries like US, there are high chances that the composers would have sued the company for millions. Companies like Smule are taking India for granted he said.
However this doesn’t limit fans from using the composers song from singing. What bothers the composers really is making money out of his songs without paying any kind of royalty. Although the agreement that Ilaiyaraaja had signed for the songs were limited only for five years, royalty for those songs still rests with him.