{"id":2641,"date":"2024-09-17T15:56:19","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T15:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/lawsuit-says-she-copied-bruno-mars\/"},"modified":"2024-09-17T15:56:19","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T15:56:19","slug":"lawsuit-says-she-copied-bruno-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/lawsuit-says-she-copied-bruno-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Says She Copied Bruno Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tMiley Cyrus has been hit with a lawsuit that claims her chart-topping \u201cFlowers\u201d infringed the copyright to the Bruno Mars hit \u201cWhen I Was Your Man,\u201d setting the stage for a legal battle over two tracks that many fans already saw as connected.<\/p>\n

\n\tFiled Monday in Los Angeles federal court, the case claims that Cyrus\u2019 track \u2013 which spent eight weeks atop the Hot 100 after it was released in January 2023 \u2013 \u201cduplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements\u201d of the earlier track.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe complaint was filed not by Mars himself but by an entity called Tempo Music Investments that bought a share of the copyright to his song from one of its co-writers. In it, lawyers for that group claim the two songs have \u201cstriking similarities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAny fan of Bruno Mars\u2019 \u2018When I Was Your Man\u2019 knows that Miley Cyrus\u2019 \u2018Flowers\u2019 did not achieve all of that success on its own,\u201d lawyers for Tempo Music write. \u201cIt is undeniable based on the combination and number of similarities between the two recordings that \u2018Flowers\u2019 would not exist without \u2018When I Was Your Man.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for Cyrus did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations.<\/p>\n

\n\tTempo is hardly the first to note connections between the two songs. When \u201cFlowers\u201d was first released, many fans saw it as an \u201canswer song\u201d to Mars\u2019 earlier track \u2014 with Cyrus directly responding to the song\u2019s regrets. Where Mars laments that \u201cI should\u2019ve bought you flowers\u2026 take you to every party, \u2019cause all you wanted to dance,\u201d Cyrus protests on \u201cFlowers,\u201d that \u201cI can buy myself flowers\u2026 I can take myself dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe reason for the references? According to internet speculation, Mars\u2019 song was a favorite of Cyrus\u2019 ex-husband Liam Hemsworth and her allusions were a reference to their split.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time, legal experts told Billboard <\/em>that Cyrus was likely not violating copyrights simply by using similar lyrics to fire back at the earlier song \u2013 a time-honored music industry tradition utilized by songs ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s \u201cSweet Home Alabama\u201d to countless rap diss records.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is great fodder for fan theories, but lawyers should have nothing to do with it,\u201d Joseph Fishman, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville, said at the time. \u201cUsing one song to issue a retort to an earlier song is not, by itself, infringement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Monday\u2019s complaint, attorneys for Tempo argue that the similarities in Cyrus\u2019 song extend well beyond the clap-back lyrics, including \u201cmelodic and harmonic material,\u201d \u201cpitch ending pattern,\u201d and \u201cbass-line structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cImmediately upon the release of \u2018Flowers,\u2019 the public recognized the striking similarities between the song and \u2018When I Was Your Man,\u2019\u201d Tempo\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cThe combination of elements \u2013 both musical and lyrical \u2013 confirm that \u2018Flowers\u2019 copies extensively from \u2018When I Was Your Man.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the filing the lawsuit, some copyright experts remain skeptical. On social media<\/a>, Fishman said the merits of Tempo\u2019s case were \u201cweak\u201d and that the musical similarities were rooted in commonplace song elements that also exist in other tracks like Gloria Gaynor\u2019s \u201cI Will Survive\u201d or Ace of Base\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s a Beautiful Life.\u201d He also questioned why Mars himself was not involved.<\/p>\n

\n\tAaron Moss, a veteran copyright litigator at the law firm Greenberg Glusker, cited numerous other songs<\/a> that \u201creply to other songs,\u201d including \u201cLove Will Tear Us Apart\u201d by Joy Division and \u201cLove Will Keep Us Together\u201d by Captain & Tennille: \u201cIt\u2019s not copyright infringement folks,\u201d Moss said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn attorney for Tempo did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miley Cyrus has been hit with a lawsuit that claims her chart-topping \u201cFlowers\u201d infringed the copyright to the Bruno Mars hit \u201cWhen I Was Your Man,\u201d setting the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3448,2904,303,3449],"class_list":["post-2641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-bruno","tag-copied","tag-lawsuit","tag-mars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}