Ilaiyaraaja issues legal notice to makers of Lokesh Kanagaraj, Rajinikanth’s Coolie

Composer Ilaiyaraaja has sent a legal notice to Sun Pictures, the producers of Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Rajinikanth-starrer Coolie, over unauthorised use of his song, states a report by India Today. The notice states that a segment from the song Vaa Vaa Pakkam Vaa from the 1983 film Thanga Magan has been used without permission.

In the legal notice, Ilaiyaraaja reportedly claims that permission has not been obtained for the usage of the song in the announcement video of Coolie, nor has the composer been paid a royalty fee for the usage of the song.

A portion of the legal notice reportedly reads, “Our Client is shocked, surprised and concerned to notice that you (Sun Pictures) have, without obtaining to authorization and permission, exploited the musical work/song of our Client Disco, Disco portion of the vaa vaa pakkam vaa song from the Tamil cinematography film Thanga Magan and used the portion of the song which would also amount to distorted version of the musical work, in your cinematography film Coolie without obtaining proper consent/permission of or payment of royalty fee from our Client or the usage of the original/adapted/modified/altered version. (sic)”

Apart from raising objections over the unauthorised use of the song, India Today reports that the legal notice also claims that Lokesh has a ‘history of unauthorised exploitation of Ilaiyaraaja’s musical works, like in Vikram 2 (2022) and Fight Club (2023)’.

A point in the legal notice further reads, “Some of the musical works of our Client have been exploited without authorization in his earlier films namely Vikram-2 (song- vikram vikram.), Fight Club (song-en jodi manja kuruvi) and now in the upcoming cinematography film Coolie, all without payment of consent and/or royalty or license fee of any nature, knowing very well, that our Client has not authorized any person/entity including that of Sony or IPRS and that our Client is directly collecting the royalty/licensee fee for him and that is prejudicial to his reputation and original creations.

Directed by Lokesh and produced by Sun Pictures, the announcement video of Coolie saw a reboot of the song composed by Ilaiyaraaja made by Anirudh Ravichander. Anirudh had also composed for Vikram. This is Lokesh’s next film after the 2023 Vijay-starrer Leo. It remains to be seen if Coolie will be a part of LCU, connecting it to films like Kaithi, Vikram and Leo.