Los Angeles: Singer-songwriter Miley Cyrus is facing a lawsuit over the alleged similarities between her track ‘Flowers’ and Bruno Mars’ hit track ‘When I Was Your Man’.
The lawsuit has been filed in a Los Angeles court, and was put in motion by Tempo Music Investments — which owns a share of the copyright in Mars’ hit after it acquired songwriter Philip Lawrence’s music catalogue, reports ‘People’ magazine.
Tempo Music Investments has alleged that many “recognised the striking similarities” between the two songs upon the release of ‘Flowers’. The documents, accessed by ‘People’, state that ‘Flowers’ “duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements” of Mars’ track.
It read, “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’”.
“Accordingly, Plaintiff brings this action for copyright infringement arising out of Defendants’ unauthorised reproduction, distribution and exploitation of ‘When I Was Your Man’”, the complaint added.
As per ‘People’, Tempo Music Investments also listed ‘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, and the defendants listed in the suit to stop reproducing, distributing or publicly performing ‘Flowers’.
