Tempo Music Investments, LLC v. Miley Cyrus

**Plaintiff:** Tempo Music Investments, LLC (owner of a share of the copyright in "When I Was Your Man" via acquisition of songwriter Philip Lawrence's catalog) **Defendant:** Miley Cyrus; co-writers Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack; publishers Sony Music Publishing, Concord Music Publishing, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., and related entities; distributor/retailer defendants including Sony Music Entertainment, Apple Inc., iHeartMedia, Amazon, Spotify/Pandora/Deezer/Tidal/SoundCloud/Xandrie, Live Nation, Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, and Disney Platform Distribution **Core allegation:** Miley Cyrus's 2023 Grammy-winning hit "Flowers" unlawfully copies multiple protected elements of Bruno Mars's 2013 chart-topper "When I Was Your Man," including the verse's melodic pitch design and sequence, the connecting bass-line, chorus bars, theatrical music elements, lyrical elements, and specific chord progressions. Defendants reproduced, distributed, and commercially exploited "Flowers" without authorization from Tempo, a copyright co-owner of the infringed work. **Asserted IP:** - Musical composition "When I Was Your Man" (Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence, et al., 2013) — copyright co-owned by Tempo via Lawrence catalog acquisition - No copyright registration number stated in extracted text **Relief sought:** Not stated in extracted text (complaint cut off before prayer for relief), but action seeks damages and injunctive relief for copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. **Why it matters:** The target work won the 2024 Grammy for Record of the Year and broke Spotify's record for fastest song to reach one billion streams, making this one of the highest-profile music copyright cases since *Blurred Lines* and a potential bellwether for how broadly courts will protect melodic and harmonic elements in pop compositions.