Miley Cyrus Is Being Sued for $300 Million Over Her Hit Song “We Can’t Stop”
Miley Cyrus took a major musical turn with her latest album Younger Now, but now her older music is coming back in an unexpected way. The singer has been hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit to the tune of $300 million over her 2013 hit “We Can’t Stop.”
According to Reuters, Jamaican songwriter Michael “Flourgon” May has claimed that “We Can’t Stop” closely resembles his 1988 song “We Run Things.” The legal documents say that about 50 percent of “her song comes from him, and that Cyrus and her label, RCA Records, lifted one of his lyrical phrases. The words in question on “We Can’t Stop” are, “We run things/Things don’t run we.” In May’s track, the lyrics say, “We run things/Things no run we.”
May’s lawyers described the lawsuit as a $300 million case, saying that Cyrus’ song “owes the basis of its chart-topping popularity and its highly-lucrative success to plaintiff May’s protected, unique, creative and original content.” May is also requesting that all further sales and performances of the song are stopped.
Cyrus is credited as only one of the songwriters on her hit, along with producer Mike “Mike Will Made It” Williams, Pierre “P-Nasty” Slaughter, Theron and Timothy Thomas (a.k.a. Rock City), Douglas “Doug E. Fresh” Davis, and Ricky “Slick Rick” Walters.
According to People, the lawsuit also uses Cyrus’s change from an “‘All-American,’ wholesome musical and television character” on Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana to an “edgy” singer against her, saying that Caribbean music inspired the image overhaul. Cyrus has yet to comment on the allegations.
Do you hear the similarities in these two songs? Let us know @BritandCo!
(Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)
