A new lawsuit has been filed against singer Miley Cyrus alleging that when writing her Grammy-winning hit song “Flowers”, she and her fellow songwriters copied parts of a Bruno Mars song.
The new lawsuit was filed last September 16 in a federal court in Los Angeles. Said lawsuit names Sony Music Publishing, Apple, Target, Walmart, and several other companies as defendants accused of distributing “Flowers.”
Tempo Music Investments claimed that the song includes unauthorized “exploitation” of several elements of Mars’ 2013 Hot 100-charting song “When I Was Your Man.”
The aforementioned song was co-written by Mars, Ari Levine, Andrew Wyatt, and Philip Lawrence. Tempo Music claimed that it has acquired some of the song’s U.S. copyrights. The lawsuit does not list Mars as a plaintiff.
In the lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone, it reads, “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 base-line, and certain bars of the chorus, certain theatrical music elements, lyric elements, and specific chord progressions.”
It went on, naming Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack, two other songwriters who collaborated with Cyrus, as co-defendants: “With ‘Flowers,’ Cyrus, Hein, and Pollack have created a derivative work of ‘When I Was Your Man’ without authorization.”
“Flowers,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January of last year, turned into a career-defining success for Cyrus. In February, she won her first ever Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance thanks to the hit song.
Tempo Music wants to prevent Cyrus from sharing or performing “Flowers “ and is requesting an undisclosed sum of money in damages.
The singer has not responded yet to the said lawsuit.
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