Miley Cyrus and the cowriters of her Grammy-winning 2023 hit, “Flowers”, are being sued for copying Bruno Mars’ 2013 ballad “When I Was Your Man.” But, and this is important, it is not Bruno who is doing the suing. Tempo Music Investments have brought the case. On their website, Tempo bills itself as “a proprietary music rights acquisition platform that operates in partnership with Warner Music Group.” A few years ago Tempo “acquired” the catalog of Philip Lawrence, a songwriter and longtime collaborator of Bruno Mars’, thus giving them a share of the song’s copyright. Of course Tempo is seeking damages with this lawsuit, but they’re also ballsy enough to be asking for Miley to stop “reproducing, distributing or publicly performing ‘Flowers.’” Here’s more from People Mag’s reporting:
Miley Cyrus is being sued in a new lawsuit over the alleged similarities between her 2023 hit “Flowers” and Bruno Mars’ 2013 track “When I Was Your Man.”
According to the lawsuit, which was obtained by PEOPLE and filed in a Los Angeles court on Monday, Sept. 16, Tempo Music Investments — which owns a share of the copyright in Mars’ hit after it acquired songwriter Philip Lawrence’s music catalog — alleges that many “recognized the striking similarities” between the two songs upon the release of “Flowers.”
“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,’” the documents state, adding that “Flowers” “duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements” of Mars’ track.
“Accordingly, Plaintiff brings this action for copyright infringement arising out of Defendants’ unauthorized reproduction, distribution and exploitation of ‘When I Was Your Man,’” the complaint adds.
Tempo Music Investments also lists “Flowers” songwriters Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack — who wrote the track with Cyrus — among multiple defendants, along with Sony Music Publishing and Apple, in the suit. Mars is not named as a plaintiff in the filing.
The investment platform claims in the documents that it acquired “the copyright interests” of Mars’ hit — which was written by the singer, 38, Lawrence 44, Ari Levine and Andrew Wyatt — “in or around 2020.”
Among the accusations, the suit states that “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.’”
Tempo Music Investments wants Cyrus, 31, and the defendants listed in the suit to stop reproducing, distributing or publicly performing “Flowers.” The company is also seeking damages, but the amount is yet to be determined.
Reps for Cyrus and Mars did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
The lawsuit comes after Cyrus won record of the year at the 2024 Grammys for “Flowers” on Feb. 4. She also won the best pop solo performance gong for the track.
Artists being sued for copying other songs isn’t anything new. We’ve seen a spate of them in recent years, from Ed Sheeran to Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams to Ed Sheeran to Lady Gaga to Ed Sheeran. So what gives? Do the pop stars of today not know their music history? (Even if it’s very recent history?) Is this just the mathematical inevitability of there being a finite number of notes and chords? If a song falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? Well color me nerdy, but I actually love that this lawsuit situates the conversation of songwriters’ originality at the intersections of music, copyright law, and the purchase of artist catalogs by big companies. The fact that Tempo is associated with Warner is a big deal. Warner is a huge operation — they bought David Bowie’s catalog for $250 million in 2021 — so they have the resources to fund litigation like this case against Miley Cyrus and “Flowers.”
I’m not expert enough in music composition to say definitively if a piece of music has been plagiarized; I only have the authority of my ears, and they’re telling me that yeah, the songs sound alike. It also doesn’t help that some of the lyrics are so similar: “That I should’ve bought you flowers” vs “I can buy myself flowers” are the respective first lines of each song’s chorus! But I’m also wondering why is Tempo suing now, 20 months after “Flowers” was first released? And could the outcome actually be that Miley is legally prevented from performing the song that won her her first Grammy? Plus, how long until Bruno Mars has to comment on this case? Or, dare I say it, buy Miley flowers?
Flowers is a reference to WIWYM and that’s known, it’s purposefully a diss to Liam. It goes to show that erring on the side of caution and legally sampling is the way to go in cases like this.
For us less knowledgeable, what is the distinction of “legally sampling” and how Miley did it?
I was going to say, I thought that was the point of Miley’s song? Pretty sure I heard/read somewhere when the song came out that it was supposed to be a counterpoint to Bruno’s song. It’s weird that her team wouldn’t have done their due diligence.
But can you just take a song and make a female version of it using the same words and music😶isn’t that a form of copying, I don’t know 😶
@swaz, the writing isn’t 100% copy, it changes the chorus into “actually, I can do all those things by myself”. She didn’t write exact full opposite of Bruno’s song. Also, there was a report of Miley getting approval from Bruno about it. If he didn’t ask for credit, she wouldn’t see the need. At the end of the day, it was Bruno’s song, so that was the person she called according to what is reported before.
I can’t speak to any of the music claims, but in terms of lyrics, as a college professor who frequently has to explain/teach about and deal with plagiarism, I would argue that while she is not copying the lyrics, she is definitely referencing them.
It seems her explicit aim was to put this song in dialogue with Mars’ song, and challenge the concepts he sets forth in his song.
If this were an academic paper, that would be fine in terms of using others’ work – academics constantly reference other scholarship to support or challenge it.
But academics have to cite their sources, and this is where Miley entered a potentially dangerous zone: there’s no real “citing sources” in a song. But she perhaps should have looked into giving Mars’ songwriters some credit for this song, since their original lyrics clearly had a role in shaping the lyrics for her chorus.
To further muddle things, I will add that it certainly seems like female artists get slapped with copyright charges more so than male artists (see: Olivia Rodriguez losing the case Taylor Swift brought against her vs. Ed Sheerhan constantly getting away with apparently multiple copyright suits, most recently winning the suit Marvin Gaye’s family brought against him – and Sheerhan’s statement being basically “there’s only 3 chords in music so of course all songs will sound alike.”)
All this to say, it seems like there is some gendering going on in who gets accused and who gets excused from creative similarities.
She didn’t sample or even interpolate. She wrote an answer song to the original song which builds on its art and arguably brought more attention to it. Pretty sure Bruno was fine with it. I hope he testifies on her behalf because this a gross money grab from a corporation and has nothing to do with the sanctity of art. Moves like this only destroy creativity and art.
Exactly! This helps the original, brings it back to the forefront. I know I went back and listened to it after I heard Flowers. Very much an ….. oh yeah! Moment
Yes Flowers seems to be a reply to WIWYM as a FU to Liam, but I dont find any similarities with the melody. They’re trying to go for something.
Agree.
Flowers is a transformative work called a “response song” to If I Was Your Man. Miley does know her music history, that is literally how the song was written.
… And WIWYM sounds like 2 songs by Elton John mixed together.
I remember reading that Miley talked to Bruno and he approved at the time. The main purpose of the song is being the opposite of Bruno’s song. There was a speculation that it was her ex’s favorite song, but we don’t know how true that is, the rumor was started by Miley’s stans. I love the song and I think it is a cool concept to write an answer to another song. Sh*t like this ruins the art of music. The music is never unique, it always adds to the existing art, that is how it evolves. A lot of old musicians said before they also got their ideas from the music before them. Getting inspired by what is already done isn’t a new concept.
There is a speculation that they waited this long to get maximum revenue from the song. It got played a lot and got a Grammy. If they sued earlier and Miley’s label stopped selling the song, it would make less money, hence less money if they win the lawsuit.
That’s how I remember it. Bruno Mars was on board. They are very similar songs and Miley isn’t dumb (She did a fantastic Black Mirror episode about ripping off Nine Inch Nails, c’mon she knows the music industry). I hope this gets thrown out. It’s a great song and brings attention to the Bruno Mars original.
I can’t speak for the music, but I would think the lyrics falls under fair use, “Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports.”
I can’t speak for the music, but I would think the lyrics falls under fair use, “Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports.”
I think it falls under commentary.
With you. I am not knowledgeable on copyright law, but there are one million songs about Major Tom as an homage to Bowie’s Space Oddity. Mylie’s song clearly has some of the same cords, but otherwise it mentions flowers, hands, and hours in the same sequence. None of which are unique to songs about broken relationships. This seems absurd to me.
Eh I’m not hearing it, even if I imagine his song set to a disco beat. Plus I’m no musician, but can’t you play like hundreds of songs using the same 3 chords?
This is a money grab, pure and simple. I hate lawsuits like this. They ruin art. She didn’t copy the song, she wrote an answer song to it. And it’s a banger! If every artist is sued when they do anything interesting like this, we’ll have no good art at all.
Did she not say when the song first came out that she had Bruno’s okay to do a response to the song? Maybe that doesn’t matter legally.
they sue later on purpose, because that’s when they’ve made more money, so they can get more $$$.
I didn’t even know it was Miley singing this song until she won the Grammy for it. If it’s a response to Bruno’s song then it’s not really copying.
I don’t think they are musically alike, or lyrically. They have the word flowers in them, but come on.
Visual artists respond directly to other artists’ works All The Time. I am curious how it works legally. An obvious example might be Roy Lichtenstein’s “Bedroom at Arles” copying Van Gogh’s painting. Lichtenstein “copies” tons of other folks’ work, but he brings something new. I would argue Cyrus did the same. But when does a responding artist need to contact the original artist (or their estate)? Like Lichtenstein wasn’t calling up Van Gogh’s estate, right?
As a former lawyer whose husband still does intellectual property cases (albeit not as fun as this one), I find this all very interesting.
It is definitely a money grab. A lot of copyright and patent cases are. Miley has deep pockets so they are going after her. I don’t know if the law has changed, but it used to be that the songs had to have the same or similar musical “Hook,” which was a legal term of art the meaning of which I don’t precisely remember.
The case seems like BS because as others have said, it’s a “response song.” It’s kind of like those two poems from the Elizabethan (or was it the Romantic?) era, “A Shepherd to his Shepherdess” and then the “Shepherdess’ Response.” It’s silly to suggest she was just copying Mars when she is making her own point. But they still might be able to squeeze some money out of her, hoping she’ll settle to avoid the unknown of a trial, and just make the headache go away.
I hope she doesn’t settle and go to court and explain to the jury just like Ed Sheeran did. The more money they make from things like that, the more lawsuits are gonna get filed. Fighting a lawsuit is expensive, but it would discourage future ones at least.
Miley’s song is a ripoff of Denim and Diamonds that was released a year or so prior by a much more original alt country artist, Nikki Lane. Maybe also they put Bruno’s song in the blender to give it more of a schmaltzy appeal too.
I hate these kind of lawsuits. Especially the blurred lines one. Like all art throughout history has been inspired by, copied, etc. it’s one thing to blatantly steal a song, or sampling without permission, but there is only so much you can do with music.
The only purpose is copyright trolls getting money and then dampening artistic freedom.
Holy moly she looks frightening. Like her sis noa