CHENNAI: The Chennai Super Kings, a Chennai-based IPL franchise, informed the Madras High Court on Friday that it will not use songs and background music from movies of actor Rajinikanth in the team’s promotional content on its official social media handles.
Appearing for the CSK, senior counsel PS Raman made the submission before Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy when a civil suit filed by Sun TV Network alleging violation of copyright by the team came up for hearing.
The Sun Network, represented by senior counsel J Ravindran, submitted that it is the producer of the films 'Jailer', 'Jailer 2' and 'Coolie', which star Rajinikanth and others. The music for these movies was composed by Anirudh Ravichander. Being commissioned works created at its instance, the Sun Network said it holds worldwide and irrevocable rights over all deliverables received through agreements entered into with the music composer for the lyrics.
Sun Network, in its petition, stated that CSK unveiled its new jersey for the 2026 Indian Premier League season on March 1 and allegedly used audio tracks and dialogues from Rajinikanth films produced by the Sun group without prior permission, thereby exploiting copyrighted material.
The petition claimed that the content used in the promotional video included the Harbour Gang BGM, Mansion Rules BGM, Hukum Reloaded, the Hukum song, and Rajini’s dialogue BGM, all of which are part of copyrighted works owned by the Sun Group. It alleged that these were incorporated into the campaign without obtaining the required authorisation.
Stating that the videos, which had commercially exploited the copyrighted audio tracks and dialogues, garnered huge viewership on the day of release and earned commercial gain, the Sun Network termed the act an infringement under the Copyright Act, 1957 that caused irreparable loss, injury and prejudice to it.
The network sought the court to permanently restrain CSK from using and disseminating such content and to pass a decree of damages of Rs 1 crore for violation or infringement of copyright.
The judge adjourned the case to March 16 to enable the CSK to file a counter-affidavit as sought by Raman.