Chennai, Jan. 5: Composer Ilayaraja has warned that using his music released before 2000 without “prior permission and licensing” would invite penal action.

“Movie producers and composers are advised not to use my songs and background scores (including remixes) without prior permission and licensing. It is also mandatory for advertisement agencies, TV channels and serial producers to take proper licence and permission from Agi Music to use my songs in their production or programme,” he told a news conference here.

The well-known music director, who has composed over 6,000 songs for nearly 700 movies in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi, said he had entered into a licensing agreement with Agi Music of Malayasia for distributing his songs in any format, be it mobile ring tones, caller tunes or online downloads.

“Agi Music has the rights to administrate all of Ilayaraja’s works before the year 2000, in all areas and platform including radio broadcasting, synchronisation usage, mechanical usage, mobile content and Internet downloads,” Agilan Lechaman, the CEO of Agi Music said in a statement.

Ilayaraja, whose latest score was for the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Paa, alleged that a few record labels were violating copyright laws by releasing his songs in the new media without permission. Before the year 2000, copyright laws were not clear on rules for the new media, like the Internet.

The distribution rights for songs composed by Ilayaraja after 2000 have been given to several companies, sources said.

In a related development, Tamil cinema heroes Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan came out in support of producer-actor Sharathkumar to fight video piracy.

Sharathkumar’s yet to be released film Jaggubai has found its way into the market in the form of DVDs and Internet downloads.

“We should fight the black sheep in our industry who facilitated the leaking of this movie even before it hit the cinemas,” Rajnikanth told a news meet called by Sharathkumar.

Kamal Haasan alleged that black money generated by the production and sale of pirated DVDs was used to finance terrorist acts like the Mumbai attacks.