A judge denied Miley Cyrus’ attempt to throw out a copyright lawsuit against the pop star.
Tempo Music Investments’ lawsuit against Cyrus alleging similarities between her Grammy-winning song “Flowers” and Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man.” will move forward after Judge Dean D. Pregerson denied her request Tuesday, FOX Business can confirm. Tempo Music acquired the rights to “When I Was Your Man” after buying the catalog of Philip Lawrence, a co-author of the song.
Cyrus’ legal team had argued that a co‐owner’s right to sue for infringement of copyright would be lost upon transfer. However, Pregerson disagreed, stating that limitation “would diminish [sic] the value of jointly owned copyrights, because buyers would be less interested in purchasing a copyright that they cannot enforce, thereby disincentivizing co‐authorship and collaboration in works.”
MILEY CYRUS ACCUSED OF COPYING BRUNO MARS IN LAWSUIT OVER SONG ‘FLOWERS’
The judge noted the heart of Cyrus’ team’s argument that a co‐owner cannot transfer an exclusive right because a co‐owner is not the exclusive owner of the rights is incorrect.
“Ownership of ‘exclusive rights’ is not to be conflated with ‘exclusive ownership’ of rights,” Pregerson wrote in the order, obtained by FOX Business. “The ‘exclusive rights’ are what is owned collectively by the co‐owners. Each co‐owner of a copyright owns an interest in the exclusive rights that make up a copyright. These exclusive rights are exclusive to the co‐owners collectively as against the rest of the world.”
FOX Business reached out to representatives for Cyrus and Tempo Music for comment.
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Tempo Music, which owns a share of the copyright to Mars’ song, “When I Was Your Man,” sued Cyrus in September for “striking similarities” in her popular song “Flowers.”
“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,” the original lawsuit, obtained by FOX Business, read.
“’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,” lawyers for Tempo Music claimed in court docs.
While Mars is not listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, co-writers Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack are. Cyrus is also not the only defendant listed, with Tempo Music naming Sony Music Publishing and Apple in the lawsuit.
“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,'” the lawsuit noted.
Tempo Music claimed that it acquired the copyright interests of Mars’ track “in or around 2020” and requested Cyrus and others stop reproducing, distributing or publicly performing “Flowers.”
FOX Business’ Stephanie Giang-Paunon contributed to this report.
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