(left) Ilaiyaraaja. Ajith Kumar from ‘Good Bad Ugly’.
Tamil superstar Ajith Kumar’s blockbuster film, Good Bad Ugly, has been removed from the streaming platform Netflix in India. This comes just ten days after the Madras High Court restrained the film’s production house Mythri Movie Makers from using Ilaiyaraaja’s songs in the film.
On September 17, 2025 (Wednesday), fans of the star took to social media to express their disappointment over not being able to access the movie on the streaming site.
Good Bad Ugly, directed by Adhik Ravichandran, was releasd in theatres on April 10, 2025. The movie has three songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja from his yesteryear Tamil movies — ‘Oththa Roova’ from Nattupura Pattu (1996), ‘Ilamai Idho Idho’ from the Kamal Haasan-starrer Sakalakala Vallavan (1982) and ‘En Jodi Manja Kuruvi’ from Vikram (1986).
Post the release, Ilaiyaraaja filed a copyright infringement suit against the production house, stating the banner didn’t obtain permission from him to use the songs in the movie. The music maestro demanded the removal of the songs from the film and ₹5 crore as compensation. The Madras High Court granted an ex-parte interim order in favour of Ilaiyaraaja since the production house had given a “bad” reply to a legal notice issued to it.
In its reply to the legal notice, Mythri Movie Makers had claimed to have obtained necessary authorisation from the owners of the copyright, but failed to give details with respect to the individuals/firms from which such authorisation had been obtained and the nature of such authorisation.
This isn’t the first time the composer took the legal route over the unauthorised use of his songs. Earlier, he had issued a legal notice to Sun Pictures over the allegedly illegal use of a song from his 1983 film Thanga Magan in their upcoming Rajinikanth-starrer Coolie. He had also issued a legal notice to the producers of the Malayalam movie Manjummel Boys for “unlawfully exploiting” the song ‘Kanmani Anbodu,’ from the Tamil movie Guna, in their movie.
It remains unknown if and when Good Bad Ugly will return to streaming. It is to be noted that the film is still available on Netflix in the US, as per social media users.
Published – September 17, 2025 04:20 pm IST
