Judge challenges Miley Cyrus’ bid to dismiss ‘Flowers’ plagiarism lawsuit
Miley Cyrus‘ hopes of dismissing a copyright infringement lawsuit filed over her Grammy-winning hit ‘Flowers’ have waned. It appears that the federal judge on the case may oppose her bid.
During a court hearing in downtown Los Angeles on March 10th, U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson outlined that he believed plaintiff Tempo Music Investments had grounds to continue with their lawsuit against Cyrus, according to Rolling Stone.
In the lawsuit filed in September 2024, Tempo Music Investments accused ‘Flowers’ of using identical melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements from Bruno Mars’ 2013 single ‘When I Was Your Man’. In Cyrus’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, she rejected the infringement claims and claimed Tempo lacked any standing upon which they could rightfully sue.
Cyrus claimed that Tempo, who purchased a fractional share of the song from one of that song’s four co-authors, Philip Lawrence, did not retain the same standing to sue that Lawrence had before he sold his fractional share.
In essence, Cyrus is arguing that a co-author can sell their profit interest in a copyrighted work, but the same co-author can’t utilise their individual right to sue for infringement individually, without the consent of the song’s other co-owners. This is a position Tempo’s lawyers are disputing.
“There’s a profound policy issue before the court. Adopting the rule urged by Cyrus would turn the entire music industry, indeed the tech industry as well, on its ear. The policy behind the Copyright Act allows people to freely sell their interests in copyright,” Tempo lawyer Alex Weingarten argued.
In response, Judge Pregerson said: “Or if someone dies and someone acquires an interest through an estate. All of a sudden they lose the right to enforce it.”
Weingarten replied, “Precisely, your honour. It’s preposterous. If a right does not include the right to enforce that right, then the right is meaningless. You can’t have a rule where if a copyright owner dies, their estate is unable to be able to enforce that copyright.”
No immediate rule on the dismissal motion was made at the court hearing on March 10th. Instead, Judge Pregerson took it under submission after also hearing from Cyrus’ lawyer, Peter Anderson, who cited two previous cases regarding co-author ownership that supported their fight.
The case continues.
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