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The Indian film and music industry is in the middle of a small avalanche of high-stakes copyright litigation, and the cases are not really about Bollywood. They are about a question every producer, music label, OTT platform, brand manager, and creator has quietly avoided for two decades: who actually owns a recreated song? The two suits in the headlines this month are working through the same structural fault line. Bollywood music copyright as a regime was built between 1957 and the 1994 amendments, refined by the Supreme Court in 1977, and re-engineered by Parliament in 2012. The contracts that fuel today’s recreation economy were written before any of that re-engineering. The pre-2000 catalogue is now being asked to do work no one drafted it to do.
Key Takeaways
- Pooja Entertainment v. Tips Industries Ltd. & Ors. — ₹400-crore suit in the Bombay High Court over the recreated Chunnari Chunnari and Ishq Sona Hai for Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai; Pooja claims the 1999 assignment to Tips covered only audio rights, with video rights retained.
- Trimurti Films Pvt. Ltd. v. B62 Studios Pvt. Ltd. & Ors. — the Delhi High Court on 14 May 2026, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela presiding, refused interim injunction on the OTT release of Dhurandhar: The Revenge and directed Super Cassettes Industries (T-Series) to deposit ₹50 lakh pending trial.
- Indian music rights split across six separable layers: sound recording, musical composition, lyrics, synchronisation, mechanical reproduction, and performer’s plus moral rights. Each can sit with a different owner under a different assignment.
- The Supreme Court’s 1977 judgment in IPRS v. Eastern India Motion Picture Association vested ownership of soundtrack copyright with the film producer. The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 introduced provisos to Section 17, second and third provisos to Section 18, and sub-sections 19(9) and 19(10) that confer non-assignable royalty rights on composers and lyricists for utilisation beyond theatrical exhibition.
- A 28 April 2023 Bombay High Court judgment by Justice Manish Pitale — the same judge before whom the Pooja Entertainment matter sits — held that the 2012 amendments effectively altered the position laid down in IPRS for utilisation post-21 June 2012.
- The pre-2000 catalogue is the highest-risk segment. Assignments from the 1970s to 90s were typically not drafted to address synchronisation in later films, OTT streaming, short-form social media use, or AI-assisted recreation — making the next two to three years of litigation a re-pricing event for legacy music IP.
The Cases That Brought the Crisis Into Focus
Two suits, both filed within weeks of each other, have given the structural problem a public face.
Pooja Entertainment’s suit against Tips Industries Limited, Ramesh Taurani, Kumar S. Taurani, and director David Dhawan was filed in the Bombay High Court in May 2026 through V K Dubey Associates. The claim is for an injunction restraining the release, distribution, exhibition, streaming, and further commercial exploitation of Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai, a mandatory title change, removal of Chunnari Chunnari and Ishq Sona Hai from the film and its promotional material, and ₹100 crore in additional damages if compliance is delayed. The total quantum is ₹400 crore. Pooja’s argument is structural: when Biwi No. 1 was made in 1999, Pooja sold audio rights to Tips Music but retained video rights, and the recreation of Chunnari Chunnari as a visual sequence in a new film involves rights that were never assigned. Tips denies the allegations.
The Trimurti Films matter has moved faster. Trimurti, founded in 1969 by the late Gulshan Rai and currently managed by his son Rajiv Rai, sued B62 Studios, Jio Studios, and Super Cassettes Industries (T-Series) in the Delhi High Court over the use of a remixed Tirchhi Topiwale — titled Rang De Lal (Oye Oye) — in Dhurandhar: The Revenge, which released theatrically on 19 March 2026. Trimurti claimed first ownership of the original song (lyrics by Anand Bakshi, music by Kalyanji-Anandji), with a limited assignment to Super Cassettes by an agreement dated 30 June 1988. On 14 May 2026 Justice Tushar Rao Gedela refused interim injunction on the OTT release, noted Trimurti’s “eerie silence” and apathetic inaction since the song was used in Azhar in 2016, and directed T-Series to deposit ₹50 lakh with the Registrar General of the Court within four weeks. The full trial will turn on the scope of the 1988 assignment.
The two suits sit in different courts on different facts, but they put the same legal question to the system. When a pre-2000 assignment covered “cassettes and gramophone records” or “audio rights” in the technological and commercial language of its time, does it carry the right to incorporate the song into a new film, monetise a remixed version on streaming, and clear it for short-form digital reuse and brand sync? The industry has spent twenty years assuming yes. The courts are now being asked.
The Layered Rights Stack: Why a Song Is Not a Single Asset
The first thing the cases force into view is that a Hindi film song is not a single piece of intellectual property. It is a stack of at least six separable rights, each governed by a different provision of the Copyright Act, 1957, and each capable of sitting with a different owner under a different contract.
Section 13 of the Copyright Act, 1957 lists the categories of works in which copyright subsists. A Hindi film song embeds at least three of those categories simultaneously — the cinematograph film (Section 13(1)(b)), the sound recording (Section 13(1)(c)), and the underlying literary and musical works (Section 13(1)(a)). Section 14 then defines the bundle of exclusive rights for each category. The lyrics are a literary work owned by the lyricist; the musical composition is a musical work owned by the composer; the recorded performance is a sound recording typically owned by the music label; the visual sequence cut to the song is part of the cinematograph film typically owned by the producer.
Layered on top of these four are two further sets of rights that the catalogue contracts rarely contemplate. The synchronisation right — the right to combine a musical composition with a moving image in a new audiovisual work — is a particular exercise of the reproduction right under Section 14 read with the assignment provisions in Section 18. It is the right at the heart of the recreation boom. The performer’s right under Sections 38 and 38A and the author’s moral right under Section 57 sit alongside the assignable economic rights and, in the case of moral rights, are not capable of assignment at all.
Anyone advising on a recreation or sync clearance must work the stack from the bottom up. A clean assignment of the sound recording does not by itself confer the right to use the underlying composition in a new film. A licence from the music label to stream the song does not confer the right to cut new visuals to it. And the post-2012 royalty rights of composers and lyricists travel with the work regardless of what the original assignment said.
The IPRS Doctrine and the 2012 Amendment Reset
For thirty-five years the governing position on who owned the music in a Hindi film was the Supreme Court’s judgment in Indian Performing Right Society Ltd. v. Eastern India Motion Picture Association, AIR 1977 SC 1443; (1977) 2 SCC 820. The Court held that when a producer commissions a composer or lyricist for valuable consideration to make music or write lyrics for a film, the producer becomes the first owner of the copyright in the cinematograph film, including the sound track, under proviso (b) to Section 17 of the Copyright Act, 1957. The composer and lyricist were left with a residual right to perform the underlying work in public for profit otherwise than as part of the film — a right that proved, in commercial practice, to be largely symbolic. The Court’s position was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers v. Aditya Pandey, (2017) 11 SCC 437, for the pre-2012 regime.
The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 was Parliament’s response to nearly a decade of advocacy by composers, lyricists, and authors’ societies that the IPRS doctrine had stripped them of any meaningful share in the commercial value of their work. The amendment did three things that matter for the recreation cases. It introduced a proviso to Section 17 distinguishing the author of the underlying literary or musical work from the first owner of the copyright in the film. It inserted the second and third provisos to Section 18, prohibiting the assignment or waiver of the right to receive royalties from utilisation of the underlying work in any form other than the communication of the work to the public along with the cinematograph film in a cinema hall. And it inserted sub-sections 19(9) and 19(10) reinforcing that the right of authors, composers, and lyricists to claim royalties for utilisation of their works survives any assignment when the work is communicated to the public other than in a cinema hall, or when a sound recording is utilised in any form.
The Bombay High Court has begun to give the 2012 amendments their substantive bite. On 28 April 2023, in a judgment that bears directly on the Pooja Entertainment matter, Justice Manish Pitale held that the 2012 amendments — particularly the proviso added to Section 17 — have the effect of altering the position laid down in IPRS for utilisation of works after 21 June 2012. The Court relied on sub-sections 19(9) and 19(10) to recognise authors’ substantive right to royalties when their creations are played outside a cinema hall, including on radio stations. The same judge now hears the Pooja Entertainment matter on the Bombay original side. The doctrinal continuity matters.
What the Trimurti and Pooja Cases Actually Turn On
Strip away the headlines and the two suits turn on the same narrow question: the scope of a legacy assignment.
In the Trimurti matter, the operative document is the 30 June 1988 agreement under which Trimurti assigned certain rights in the Tridev songs to Super Cassettes. Trimurti contends the assignment was limited to the manufacture and sale of cassettes and gramophone records — the dominant commercial channels for music distribution in 1988 — and does not extend to synchronisation of the song in a new film released thirty-eight years later. T-Series contends the assignment conveyed rights in the literary, dramatic, and musical works embodied in Tridev, and that its earlier reuse of the song (in Azhar in 2016, and in other remix releases) with no challenge from Trimurti establishes a course of dealing. Justice Gedela’s interim order leans heavily on the conduct point but reserves the textual question for trial.
The Pooja matter inverts the structural facts. Here the plaintiff producer assigned audio rights to Tips Music in 1999 while retaining the video rights. The suit is not about whether the assignment was too narrow — it is about whether the assignee’s use of the assigned right (the sound recording) implicitly carried with it the right to recreate the song in a new visual sequence in a new film. The legal architecture of the answer runs through Section 14 of the Copyright Act, the post-2012 Section 18 provisos, and the carefully drafted distinction between the sound recording (Section 13(1)(c)) and the cinematograph film (Section 13(1)(b)). Tips’ defence, which has not yet been formally filed, will likely rest on broader interpretations of the 1999 assignment, industry usage, and acquiescence.
Both cases sit upstream of the substantive legal question that the industry is going to have to answer at some point: whether the 2012 royalty regime travels backwards to assignments executed before 21 June 2012 when those assignments are exploited after 21 June 2012. The orthodox view is that the 2012 amendments are prospective in operation. The reasoning of the 2023 Bombay High Court judgment leaves room for the contrary view that the trigger is the utilisation rather than the assignment. That doctrinal gap is where the Pooja and Trimurti judgments will speak.
The Catalogue Risk Map
The legal exposure is not evenly distributed across the catalogue. It clusters in three periods, and the recreation economy has been monetising the highest-risk segment of the three.
The pre-1994 catalogue is the most exposed. Assignments from the 1970s and 80s typically referenced cassette tapes, gramophone records, and broadcast on All India Radio. They were not drafted to capture audiovisual synchronisation in subsequent feature films, much less reuse on Over-the-Top streaming platforms, monetisation through user-generated content on YouTube and Instagram, or training data for generative music models. Many were not signed by all the relevant rights holders, particularly where lyricists and composers were engaged on informal handshake terms common to the studio system of the era. The doctrine of acquiescence runs in favour of long-standing reuse, as Trimurti has now discovered, but it does not cure the textual gap when a producer chooses to enforce.
The 1994 to 2012 segment sits in middle risk. The 1994 amendments to the Copyright Act introduced the modern broadcasting and rental rights regime and tightened the requirements for written assignment under Section 19, but the IPRS doctrine remained intact. Assignments from this period are usually written and signed, but they were drafted under the assumption that the producer’s ownership of the soundtrack was settled, and they typically swept up rights in broad omnibus language without contemplating discrete synchronisation, OTT, or user-generated-content licences. The post-21-June-2012 segment carries the lowest legacy risk because new assignments are drafted against the post-amendment regime and contemplate the non-assignable royalty rights of composers and lyricists, though the contracting practice across studios remains uneven and the disclosure of royalty receipts is patchy.
The acquisition diligence implication is direct. Any catalogue acquisition that is meaningfully weighted toward pre-2000 song-level rights now needs a per-track chain-of-title review against the post-2012 regime, an exposure mapping for synchronisation and OTT usage that may not be covered by the original assignment, and a reserve allocation for the royalty obligations to underlying authors that the historical contracts purported to waive.
What Producers and Studios Must Reset Now
Production houses that hold pre-2000 catalogue rights should treat the next two quarters as the window in which to map exposure rather than respond to letters. Three concrete steps.
First, a catalogue-level chain-of-title audit. For every monetisable song asset, identify the original assignment, the date of execution, the assignor (producer, music label, composer, lyricist), the scope language, and the verifiable executions to date. Flag any song where the original assignment predates 1994, where the assignor is no longer locatable, or where the assignment is partial (audio only, mechanical only, or limited by territory). The Pooja Entertainment suit is a producer-side enforcement of exactly this exposure; sitting on the same exposure as a defendant is more expensive.
Second, a sync-clearance template refresh. New sync deals should now expressly enumerate the bundle of rights being licensed — sound recording, musical composition, lyrics, performer’s rights, moral rights consent where applicable — with a granular field for the medium (theatrical, OTT, broadcast, short-form digital, advertising, ringtone, AI training data) and the term, territory, and royalty mechanism for each. The omnibus “all rights in all media now known or hereafter devised” clause that anchored 1990s contracts is now actively dangerous in two directions: it does not save a pre-2012 assignment from the non-assignable royalty regime, and it raises a presumption of overreach that courts can use to read down ambiguous scope language.
Third, a remix and recreation governance protocol. Decision rights on which catalogue songs can be re-released as covers, remixes, or recreations should sit with a single named executive, with a documented sign-off chain that includes legal review of the underlying chain of title. The cost of getting one recreation wrong now exceeds the marketing upside of being first to market with a nostalgia hook.
What Music Labels and Publishers Must Reset Now
Music labels are the natural defendants in the next wave of suits because they hold the sound recordings, monetise them across platforms, and are the visible commercial counterparty for users wanting to clear a song. The reset for labels has three concentric layers.
At the document layer, every active sync, remix, cover-version, and platform-licensing template should be reviewed for whether it sweeps in rights the label may not actually hold under the original acquisition assignment. A label that licenses a 1980s track for synchronisation in a new film, taking the full sync fee, is in a difficult position if the producer’s assignment to it was limited to cassette and gramophone reproduction. The label’s indemnity to the new film producer becomes the financial backstop, and the indemnity is only as good as the label’s underlying rights.
At the royalty layer, the post-2012 non-assignable royalty entitlement of composers and lyricists for non-theatrical utilisation needs to be operationalised rather than negotiated away. The orthodox industry practice of buy-out lump sums followed by a perpetual silence on downstream royalties is not consistent with sub-sections 19(9) and 19(10). The exposure runs into the future for as long as the catalogue is monetised in non-theatrical media — which now means most of the meaningful revenue.
At the catalogue-acquisition layer, due diligence on inbound catalogue purchases should be calibrated to the risk map. Heavy pre-2000 weighting demands deeper warranties from the seller, broader indemnity coverage, and a price adjustment for the royalty overhang. Heavy post-2012 weighting demands cleaner documentation but smaller adjustments. The middle period requires the most analytical care because the contracts look formal but were drafted under the wrong doctrinal assumption.
What OTT Platforms, Advertisers, and Brand Managers Must Reset Now
OTT commissioners and brand managers occupy the highest-volume position in the music-clearance economy and the position where the documentation is typically thinnest. Streaming platforms commissioning original films and series, and brands running campaigns built around recognisable retro tracks, rely on the licensor (the music label or the production house) for the rights stack. When the licensor’s chain of title is defective, the platform and the brand inherit the litigation risk.
Three operational changes follow. Commissioning templates should require the licensor to represent and warrant the full rights stack down to the underlying authors’ royalty entitlement, with a specific indemnity that runs to the platform’s and the brand’s exposure, including downstream user complaints, regulatory action, and takedown costs. Clearance workflows should incorporate a chain-of-title check that goes back to the original assignment rather than stopping at the immediate licensor. And contingency budgets for take-down, re-edit, and re-clearance should be built into the production schedule for any project that uses a pre-2000 catalogue song — the Pooja Entertainment claim seeks both removal of the disputed song and a mandatory title change, two of the most disruptive remedies in audiovisual production.
What Composers, Indie Creators, and AI Music Tools Must Reset Now
The composer-side reset is finally getting empirical clarity. The 2012 amendments created a substantive right that the industry has paid lip service to and underpaid in practice. Composers, lyricists, and their estates can audit their non-theatrical royalty entitlement against streaming, broadcast, and synchronisation revenue lines, demand a statement of accounts under Section 19A from assignees who have failed to discharge it, and in cases of persistent default move the Commercial Division of the relevant High Court for accounts and damages. The settlement value of these claims is rising as the catalogue economy concentrates.
Independent creators — YouTubers, short-form video producers, indie filmmakers, podcasters, and music-driven brand agencies — sit in a different exposure category. The platform’s blanket licence covers some but not all uses, and a Section 31C statutory licence for cover versions has procedural and substantive limits that most creators do not fully internalise. A pre-emptive sync clearance from a verified rights holder is significantly cheaper than the takedown, demonetisation, or rebuild that follows a contested claim.
Generative AI music tools raise the newest variant of an old question. Training a model on a catalogue track, producing a new track stylistically derived from the original, or recreating a vocal in a recognisable singer’s voice each implicate a different set of rights in the stack. The performer’s right under Section 38A and the moral right under Section 57 sit at the centre of the singer-voice question, and neither was drafted with model-trained vocal synthesis in mind. The contracting practice will need to catch up. Until then, AI music tools and their integrators should expect to occupy the same uncomfortable middle that OTT platforms occupied in 2018.
The Ahmedabad and Gujarat Angle
The disputes sit in Mumbai and Delhi courts, but the commercial impact runs through every state with a serious music-consuming creative economy. Gujarat is one of them. Dhollywood — the Gujarati film industry — has grown rapidly through the last decade, much of it on a content strategy that mines Gujarati folk and 1980s playback catalogues for nostalgia hooks. The same legacy-assignment fragility that exposes Hindi catalogues exposes Gujarati ones, often in worse documentary shape. Ahmedabad’s advertising production houses, brand agencies, and ad film makers — the segment that licences retro music for everything from real-estate launches to FMCG campaigns — are the natural counterparties to any tightening of the clearance regime. Reliance Industries’ ownership of JioCinema and its content commissioning footprint adds a further Gujarat-rooted dimension. A 2025 sync clearance template that worked in Mumbai works in Ahmedabad too, but only if the legal review goes down to the chain of title rather than stopping at the label’s licence.
Looking Ahead
The next twelve months will produce the substantive judgments that the industry has been able to avoid for two decades. The Pooja Entertainment matter is at the stage of urgent injunction relief in the Bombay High Court before Justice Manish Pitale, whose 2023 reasoning on the post-2012 royalty regime is already part of the record. The Trimurti Films matter has moved past interim relief in the Delhi High Court and will progress to trial on the scope of the 1988 assignment. Either judgment, and certainly both together, will speak to the substantive question of how a pre-2000 assignment is to be read in a post-2012 utilisation environment.
Outside the courtroom, the contracting practice in the industry will reset around three quiet inflection points: a recalibration of sync clearance documentation, a per-track chain-of-title obligation in catalogue acquisitions, and a serious operationalisation of the composer-and-lyricist royalty regime that has been more honoured in the breach since 2012. The producers, labels, and OTT platforms that move first will absorb the lowest transaction cost. The ones that wait for the judgments will absorb the litigation and the back-royalty exposure together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who owns the copyright in a Bollywood song?
A Bollywood song embeds at least six separable rights under the Copyright Act, 1957: the sound recording (typically owned by the music label under Section 13(1)(c)), the musical composition (originally the composer’s, with non-assignable royalty rights under the post-2012 Section 18 provisos), the lyrics (the lyricist’s on the same basis), the cinematograph film embedding the audiovisual sequence (the producer’s under Section 13(1)(b)), the performer’s right (under Section 38 and 38A), and the moral right (under Section 57, which is not capable of assignment). Each layer can sit with a different owner under a different contract.
Can a film producer recreate an old Bollywood song without permission?
No. Even where the original recording is licensed from the music label, the recreation usually involves a fresh musical composition or lyric usage, a new performance, and a synchronisation with new visuals — each of which is a separable exercise of rights under the Copyright Act, 1957. The pre-2000 assignments under which most legacy catalogues sit were typically not drafted to cover synchronisation in new films, OTT release, or short-form digital use. A clean sync clearance must work the rights stack from the sound recording down to the underlying authors’ royalty entitlement.
What changed in the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 for music rights?
The 2012 amendments inserted a proviso to Section 17, second and third provisos to Section 18, and sub-sections 19(9) and 19(10) of the Copyright Act, 1957. The combined effect is that composers and lyricists of underlying literary and musical works embodied in a cinematograph film or sound recording have a non-assignable right to royalties for utilisation of those works in any form other than the communication of the work to the public along with the cinematograph film in a cinema hall. Performers’ royalty entitlements were similarly recognised through Sections 38 and 38A.
Does the 1977 IPRS judgment still apply after 2012?
Partially. The Supreme Court in Indian Performing Right Society Ltd. v. Eastern India Motion Picture Association, AIR 1977 SC 1443, held that the producer commissioning a composer or lyricist for valuable consideration is the first owner of the soundtrack copyright. The doctrine was followed in International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers v. Aditya Pandey, (2017) 11 SCC 437, for the pre-2012 regime. A 28 April 2023 Bombay High Court judgment by Justice Manish Pitale held that the 2012 amendments altered the IPRS position for utilisation post-21 June 2012. The full doctrinal reconciliation remains a live question before the High Courts.
Is a remix the same as a cover version under Section 31C of the Copyright Act?
Not necessarily. Section 31C of the Copyright Act, 1957 provides a statutory licence for cover versions of a sound recording made with the consent or licence of the original copyright holder, subject to conditions including a minimum five-year wait from the first sound recording, prior notice, and royalty payment at rates fixed by the Commercial Court. A remix — a derivative work that materially alters the composition or arrangement — sits outside the statutory licence and requires negotiated permission from the rights holders. The treatment of remixes versus cover versions remains a contested area of Indian copyright doctrine.
What does the Trimurti Films v. B62 Studios order mean for the industry?
The 14 May 2026 order by Justice Tushar Rao Gedela of the Delhi High Court refused Trimurti Films an interim injunction on the OTT release of Dhurandhar: The Revenge, citing the plaintiff’s long inaction since the same song was used in Azhar in 2016. The Court directed Super Cassettes Industries (T-Series) to deposit ₹50 lakh pending trial. The interim order is significant for the equitable doctrine of laches in copyright enforcement, but the substantive question of the scope of the 30 June 1988 assignment is reserved for trial. Industry participants relying on long, unchallenged reuse of a song should not over-read the order; the trial may yet hold that the original assignment did not cover synchronisation in a new film.
What should producers and music labels do to protect themselves now?
Three actions are immediate. Run a catalogue-level chain-of-title audit on every pre-2000 song asset to map the original assignment, its scope, and the cumulative executions to date. Refresh sync clearance and recreation templates to enumerate the full rights stack — sound recording, composition, lyrics, performer’s, moral — by medium, term, and territory, with an explicit royalty mechanism for the post-2012 non-assignable entitlements. Build governance over recreations and remixes so that decision rights sit with a single named executive with a documented legal sign-off chain. The cost of getting one recreation wrong now exceeds the marketing upside of being first to market with a nostalgia hook.
Speak to Candour Legal’s Intellectual Property team
Candour Legal represents producers, music labels, OTT platforms, brand agencies, composers, and independent creators on copyright assignment, sync licensing, catalogue chain-of-title diligence, remix and cover-version clearance, and copyright litigation before the Bombay, Delhi, and Gujarat High Courts and the Commercial Division benches.
About the author
Hiren Thakkar, Partner at Candour Legal, leads the firm’s Intellectual Property practice. He advises on copyright, trademark, and patent matters with a particular focus on the media, entertainment, and creator-economy verticals, and represents clients in IP litigation before the Gujarat High Court, the Bombay High Court, and the Commercial Court benches.
Candour Legal is a full-service Indian law firm with offices in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and New Delhi. The firm advises on Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law, Commercial Litigation, Banking and Finance, Insolvency and Bankruptcy, Capital Markets, and allied practices, and represents producers, music labels, OTT platforms, brands, and creators in matters spanning the High Courts, the Commercial Division benches, and domestic and international arbitral tribunals. More on the firm’s practice areas.
