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Explaining the copyright lawsuits against Miley Cyrus after she was sued over 'Flowers'

Miley Cyrus has been sued by a company that claims her 2023 song “Flowers” is an intentional copy of Bruno Mars' “When I Was Your Man,” released in 2012.

TMZ reported Monday that Tempo Music Investments, which claims to own a portion of the copyright to Mars' song, filed the lawsuit. Mars is not listed as a plaintiff.

The company claims that Cyrus “intentionally” copied Mars' work and states that “Flowers” features a similar melody, harmony and chord progressions to the 2012 song.

In the lawsuit, Tempo Music Investments stated: “Given the combination and numerous similarities between the two recordings, there is no denying that 'Flowers' would not exist without 'When I Was Your Man.'”

The company is demanding an unknown amount of damages and wants Cyrus to be banned from performing “Flowers” ​​and distributing the song in the future.

Cyrus has not commented publicly on the lawsuit, and neither she nor Mars representatives immediately responded to Business Insider's requests for comment.

This is the fourth time Cyrus has been sued for alleged copyright infringement

In March 2018, Jamaican artist Michael May, who performs under the stage name Flourgon, claimed that Cyrus' 2013 song “We Can't Stop” had similar lyrics to his 1988 song “We Run Things.”

In court documents, he claimed the song “misappropriated” his “musical composition/lyrical phrase” and demanded $300 million in damages. The pair settled out of court in 2020, Variety reported.

Six months later, in September 2018, Ariella Asher, also known as Yella the Triple Threat, filed suit against Cyrus and Universal Music, claiming that Mike Will Made It's 2013 song “23” – which features Cyrus – contained an “infringing composition” on her 2012 song “J's On My Feet,” according to court documents.

The lawsuit was dropped in November 2018, The Blast reported.

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Cyrus faced another lawsuit in September 2022 after sharing a photo of herself waving to fans on Instagram. Photographer Robert Barbera said she shouldn't have posted the image because she didn't own the rights to it.

The incident sparked a debate about whether a Every person has rights to his or her image in images that do not belong to him or her.

In court documents, Barbera claimed that by posting the photo to her millions of Instagram followers, Cyrus “crippled, if not destroyed, the market potential for Plaintiff's photo.”

A month later, in October 2022, Billboard reported that Cyrus had reached a settlement with Barbera and the lawsuit had been dismissed “with prejudice” – meaning Barbera cannot refile the lawsuit in the same court.