A federal judge has denied a dismissal motion from Miley Cyrus and others, and Tempo Music Investments’ ‘Flowers’ infringement suit is moving forward as a result. Photo Credit: Azraulker
One dismissal-motion rejection later, the copyright lawsuit accusing Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” of infringing on Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man” is moving forward.
The presiding judge just recently denied multiple defendants’ dismissal motion, after Tempo Music Investments fired off the underlying complaint in September 2024.
(Among the case’s defendants are Warner-Tamerlane Publishing and Deezer, the latter being controlled by Warner Music Group parent Access Industries. WMG itself took a controlling stake in Tempo Music last month, but Deezer is still expected to answer the suit by April 9th.)
As we reported at the time, Tempo says it bought an interest in “When I Was Your Man” from co-writer Philip Lawrence back in 2020. Also according to the plaintiff, Miley Cyrus and others lifted from the Mars hit without authorization to create the much-streamed “Flowers.”
Fast forward to November 2024, when Cyrus’ legal team argued in more words that Tempo lacked standing to sue for infringement.
“It is clearly established law in this Circuit that an assignee or licensee of a single co-author, like Plaintiff here, does not own exclusive rights and, as a result, lacks standing to sue for copyright infringement,” the songwriter defendants and their counsel wrote when urging dismissal.
But as mentioned at the outset, the court doesn’t feel the same way, with Judge Dean Pregerson’s order describing the dismissal position as “incorrect.”
“When a co‐owner transfers his or her interest,” Judge Pregerson penned, “which the co-owner need not obtain consent from the other co‐owners to do, the transferee stands in the shoes of the transferor, making the transferee a co‐owner in the copyright.
“Lawrence’s interest was a co‐ownership interest in the exclusive rights of the copyright. … Because Lawrence as a co-owner could sue for infringement, Tempo as co‐owner, in lieu of Lawrence, can sue for infringement without joining the other co‐owners of the copyright,” the judge proceeded.
With that dismissal argument rather definitively settled, at least for now, the next step in the courtroom confrontation appears to be formal answers from the varied defendants.
All told, those defendants include not only Miley Cyrus and the aforesaid Deezer, but Sony Music Publishing, Concord, iHeartMedia, Live Nation, Walmart, and a number of others.
Even France-based Xandrie is being pulled into the legal battle; the Qobuz parent has one week, until March 26th, to officially respond to the complaint.
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.