Miley Cyrus is facing a new lawsuit alleging that she and her fellow songwriters copied parts of Bruno Mars' “Flowers” when she wrote her Grammy-winning hit “Flowers.”
In a new lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, a company called Tempo Music Investments claims that “Flowers” includes an unauthorized “exploitation” of several elements of Mars’ 2013 Hot 100 hit “When I Was Your Man.” The lawsuit also names Sony Music Publishing, Apple, Target, Walmart and several other companies as defendants accused of distributing “Flowers.”
Tempo Music said it owns part of the U.S. copyright to “When I Was Your Man” after acquiring it from Philip Lawrence, who co-wrote the song with Mars, Ari Levine and Andrew Wyatt. Mars is not named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
“Any fan of Bruno Mars’ ‘When I Was Your Man’ knows that Miley Cyrus’ ‘Flowers’ didn’t achieve all of its success on its own. ‘Flowers’ replicates many of the melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements of ‘When I Was Your Man,’ including the melodic chord design and verse sequence, the continuous bass line, some chorus sections, certain theatrical musical elements, lyrical elements, and specific chord progressions,” the lawsuit, which was obtained by Rolling Stone He claimed.
“It is undeniable that based on the composition and number of similarities between the two recordings, ‘Flowers’ would not have existed without ‘When I Was Your Man,’” the complaint continued, naming songwriters Gregory Hine and Michael Pollack as co-defendants. “With ‘Flowers,’ Cyrus, Hine, and Pollack created a derivative work of ‘When I Was Your Man’ without permission.”
Cyrus' representatives did not immediately respond. Rolling StoneRequest comment.
In February, Cyrus won her first Grammy Award for “Flowers,” a song from her eighth studio album. Endless summer vacationThe hit song, which spent eight weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, was written after her divorce from actor Liam Hemsworth and was widely seen as a declaration of independence.
Tempo Music is seeking damages, the amount of which will be determined at trial, and an injunction preventing Cyrus and the other defendants from reproducing, distributing or publicly performing “Flowers.”
