Miley Cyrus has said there is a “fatal flaw” in the copyright infringement lawsuit against her song ‘Flowers’.
In September, a suit was filed in a Los Angeles court by Tempo Music Investments claiming that the Grammy-winning song included an unauthorised “exploitation” of Bruno Mars’ 2013 track ‘When I Was Your Man’.
Cyrus’ co-writers Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack were also named in the suit, as well as Sony Music Publishing, Apple, Target, Walmart and other companies who were accused of distributing the track.
Tempo Music said that they own a portion of ‘When I Was Your Man’ after purchasing it from Mars’ co-writer Phil Lawrence. The company is seeking damages and has demanded a court order that prohibits Cyrus from reproducing, distributing or publicly performing the song.
In her first response to the suit, Cyrus has claimed that the case has a “fatal flaw” in the fact that Mars and his other co-writers have chosen not to sue, and so has called for the suit to be dismissed.
“Plaintiff unambiguously [says] that it obtained its claimed rights in the ‘When I Was Your Man’ copyright from only one of that musical composition’s four co-authors,” said Cyrus’ attorney Peter Anderson. “That is a fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim.”
Their argument is that Tempo’s acquisition of “partial interest” of the song from Lawrence only gives them “non-exclusive rights” to it, and under US copyright law this does not give him “standing” to sue.
“Plaintiff brings this copyright infringement action alone – without any of that musical composition’s co-authors or other owners,” Anderson continued. “Without the consent of the other owners, a grant of rights from just one co-owner does not confer standing.”
In response to the claims, Tempo Music lead counsel Alex Weingarten told Billboard that the motion was “intellectually dishonest” and that they did in fact have standing to sue.
“They’re seeking to make bogus technical arguments because they don’t have an actual substantive defence to the case,” said Weingarten. “We’re not an assignee; we’re the owner of the copyright. The law is clear that we have the right to enforce our interest.”
The original lawsuit stated: “Any fan of Bruno Mars’ ‘When I Was Your Man’ knows that Miley Cyrus’ ‘Flowers’ did not achieve all of that success on its own. ‘Flowers’ duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements of ‘When I Was Your Man,’ including the melodic pitch design and sequence of the verse, the connecting bass-line, certain bars of the chorus, certain theatrical music elements, lyric elements, and specific chord progressions.”
It continued: “It is undeniable based on the combination and number of similarities between the two recordings that ‘Flowers’ would not exist without ‘When I Was Your Man,’” the complaint, which names Cyrus’ fellow songwriters Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack as co-defendants, continued. “With ‘Flowers’, Cyrus, Hein, and Pollack have created a derivative work of ‘When I Was Your Man’ without authorisation.”
Released in 2023 as the lead single from her eighth studio album ‘Endless Summer Vacation‘, ‘Flowers’ peaked at Number One on the UK Charts as well as the Billboard US Hot 100. It spent eight weeks at Number One in the US last year, and 10 weeks in the UK. ‘Flowers’ was the best-selling global single of 2023 and earned Cyrus two Grammys for Record Of The Year and Best Pop Solo Performance earlier this year.
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