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Miley Cyrus and her co-songwriters Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack are now facing a lawsuit alleging they copied parts of a Bruno Mars song.
According to the lawsuit, filed on Monday in Los Angeles federal court, Miley Cyrus and her co-songwriters are accused of stealing parts of Bruno Mars’ 2013 song “When I Was Your Man” and using them without permission in her hit “Flowers.”
Sony Music Publishing, Apple, Target, Walmart, Amazon, Live Nation and other companies are also named in the suit for distributing “Flowers.”
The lawsuit was filed by Tempo Music Investments and does not list Bruno Mars himself as a plaintiff. Tempo owns a percentage of the U.S. copyrights to Mars’ song which it acquired from co-writer Philip Lawrence, according to Variety.
NBC News reports Tempo is claiming in the lawsuit that “‘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.”
The lawsuit goes on to claim, “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.’ Accordingly, Plaintiff brings this action for copyright infringement arising out of Defendants’ unauthorized reproduction, distribution and exploitation of ‘When I Was Your Man.’”
Tempo also claims “the opening vocal line from the chorus of ‘Flowers’ begins and ends on the same chords as the opening vocal line in the verse of ‘When I Was Your Man.’”
Take a listen for yourself and see if you agree with Tempo’s claims against Miley Cyrus and her co-songwriters…
Tempo Music Investments is seeking damages to be determined at trial or “the maximum of $150,000 per infringement,” which, considering the number of times “Flowers” has been streamed, would be an astronomical amount of money.
“Flowers” broke a record for reaching one billion streams faster than any other song in Spotify history, 112 days, and was the most-streamed song in a single week in the history of the music app.
They are also demanding that Cyrus and the other defendants in the lawsuit stop reproducing, distributing or publicly performing “Flowers.”
Miley Cyrus won Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2024 Grammy Awards for “Flowers.”