Miley Cyrus ‘Flowers’ Lawsuit: Judge Skeptical of Her Bid to Escape Copyright Case

Miley Cyrus seems unlikely to immediately escape a copyright lawsuit filed over allegations that her Grammy-winning “Flowers” infringed the Bruno Mars song “When I Was Your Man.”

A Los Angeles federal judge “repeatedly indicated” at a live court hearing Monday that he would likely deny a motion to dismiss the case filed last year by attorneys for Cyrus, according to a report by Rolling Stone.

In that motion, the singer had argued that the plaintiff in the case – not Mars himself, but an financial entity called Tempo Music Investments that bought out the rights of one of his co-writers – lacked the necessary legal “standing” to pursue its claims.

But at the hearing, Judge Dean D. Pregerson appeared skeptical, according to RS – at times seeming to endorse arguments from Tempo’s lawyers that granting the motion would gut longstanding music industry practices. He reportedly asked Cyrus’ lawyer why anyone would buy partial shares in songs “knowing they could never enforce it” without the consent of all the other songwriters.

The judge did not immediately decide the motion at Monday’s hearing and will instead issue a written ruling in the weeks or months ahead.

“Flowers,” which spent eight weeks atop the Hot 100, has been linked to “Your Man” since it was released in January 2023. Many fans immediately saw it as an “answer song,” with lyrics that clearly referenced Mars’ song. The reason, according to internet sleuths, was that “Your Man” was a favorite of Cyrus’ ex-husband Liam Hemsworth – and her allusions were a nod to their divorce.

When “Flowers” was first released, legal experts told Billboard that Cyrus was likely not violating copyrights simply by using similar lyrics to fire back at the earlier song – a time-honored music industry tradition utilized by songs ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” to countless rap diss records.

But Tempo sued in September, claiming “Flowers” had lifted numerous elements beyond the clap-back lyrics, including “melodic and harmonic material,” “pitch ending pattern,” and “bass-line structure.” Tempo, which had purchased a fractional share in the song from co-writer Philip Lawrence, argued it was “undeniable” that Cyrus’ hit “would not exist” if not for “Your Man.”

In her first response in November, attorneys for Miley said that the total lack of involvement from Mars and the song’s two other co-writers was not some procedural quirk in the case, but rather a “fatal flaw” that required the outright dismissal of the lawsuit.

“Plaintiff unambiguously [says] that it obtained its claimed rights in the ‘When I Was Your Man’ copyright from only one of that musical composition’s four co-authors,” wrote Peter Anderson, the star’s lead attorney. “That is a fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim.”

In a statement at the time, Tempo Music lead counsel Alex Weingarten told Billboard that the argument from Cyrus was “intellectually dishonest” and that the group clearly had standing to pursue the lawsuit: “They’re seeking to make bogus technical arguments because they don’t have an actual substantive defense to the case.”

If the motion is denied, lawyers for Cyrus will likely shift focus to those substantive arguments. In previous filings, they have argued that the two songs have “striking differences” and that any similarities are not covered by copyright law: “The songwriter defendants categorically deny copying, and the allegedly copied elements are random, scattered, unprotected ideas and musical building blocks.”