Miley Cyrus Sued for $300 Million Over Alleged Copyright Infringement
Miley Cyrus is being sued by a Jamaican artist who claims the singer stole portions of one of his songs for her 2013 hit, "We Can't Stop."
According to Reuters, Jamaican reggae artist Michael May filed a lawsuit earlier this week for copyright infringement. May's stage name, Flourgon, had success with his 1988 original song "We Run Things," which he claims Cyrus' song borrows from. He alleges that Cyrus and her label have misappropriated his material.
May sings the phrase, "We run things. Things no run we," in "We Run Things." Cyrus' smash hit "We Can't Stop" features a similar lyric: “We run things. Things don’t run we.”
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May's filing says he contacted the U.S. Copyright Office last year to protect his work. In November, he won "formal copyright protection" for all musical arrangements in "We Run Things." He adds that Cyrus' hit "owes the basis of its chart-topping popularity to and its highly-lucrative success to plaintiff May’s protected, unique, creative and original content." He estimates that half of "We Can't Stop" comes from his song.
Cyrus and her representatives have yet to address the lawsuit, which also names Sony and Mike WiLL Made-It, who produced and co-wrote "We Can't Stop." May's lawyers expect it to be a $300 million case.
Cyrus hasn't been having the best year when it comes to the news cycle. In February, she made headlines after police in California took a man into custody when he traveled to Los Angeles after posting several unsettling Facebook messages about the singer. According to TMZ, an unnamed man made several rambling, nearly incoherent posts to Facebook about coming to find her so they can be together.
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