Madras High Court Halts Use Of Ilaiyaraaja’s Songs In Tamil Film Dude
The Madras High Court on Friday issued an interim injunction preventing Hyderabad-based Mythri Movie Makers from continuing to exhibit their Tamil film Dude with two popular Ilaiyaraaja songs that were originally composed for older films, reported The Hindu.
Justice N. Senthilkumar passed the order after concluding that Ilaiyaraaja had established a prima facie case that his work had been used without authorisation and that the songs appeared to have been distorted, causing potential harm to his artistic reputation, as per The Hindu.
The civil suit filed by Ilaiyaraaja argued that the songs “Nooru Varusham” and “Karutha Machan” were included in Dude without his approval.
In his petition, he claimed that the original musical compositions had been altered and presented in a way that affected both the integrity of the work and his moral rights as a creator.
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The court observed that, until the matter is fully heard, it would be appropriate to temporarily restrain the producers from using the disputed songs in any version of the film.
Dude is a 2025 Tamil-language romantic comedy-drama written and directed by Keerthiswaran in his directorial debut. The film stars Pradeep Ranganathan and Mamitha Baiju, along with R. Sarathkumar, Hridhu Haroon, Rohini, Aishwarya Sharma and Neha Shetty.
Produced by Mythri Movie Makers, this is the company’s second Tamil project. The film’s music was composed by Sai Abhyankkar, with cinematography by Niketh Bommi and editing by Barath Vikraman.
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The project was first confirmed by Netflix in January 2025. Mythri Movie Makers officially announced the film in March under the tentative title PR 04, referring to Pradeep Ranganathan’s fourth role as a lead actor.
Shooting began the same month in Chennai, and the title Dude was announced in May. The movie was released worldwide on October 17, 2025, during the Diwali weekend. Although critics gave mixed reviews, the film went on to become a major commercial success.
