Miley Cyrus Sued For Copyright Infringement

This content has been archived. It may no longer be accurate or relevant.

From the American University Intellectual Property Brief:

Miley Cyrus is being sued for her lyrics in her hit song “We Can’t Stop.” Lyrics are protected under copyright law if they are deemed to be creative and original material. Looking at past case law, the phrase in Cyrus’ song “we run things, they no run we,” may be original and therefore protected.

On March 13th in New York Federal Court, Michael May, the reggae singer who goes by Flourgon, filed suit against Miley Cyrus for copyright infringement of lyrics to a song he wrote in 1988. That song, “We Run Things,” features a phrase that May claims to have created and may be familiar to many pop-listeners, which goes: “we run things, they no run we.” A similar phrase can be found in Cyrus’ hit 2013 song “We Can’t Stop,” which goes “we run things, they don’t run we.” May claims that Cyrus stole this phrase and that the theme of her song would be “hallow in sound and impact” without it.

. . . .

Looking to past lyric copyright cases, Cyrus may have a solid argument for winning this case.  Just this past January, Taylor Swift faced a lawsuit in which R&B girl group 3LW sued Swift for using similar lyrics in her song “Shake it Off.” The 3LW song states,  “players, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate,” whereas the Taylor Swift song states, “cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”  US District Court Judge Michael Fitzgerald dismissed the case stating that the lyrics weren’t creative enough and stated that there was evidence that such a phrase was common when the 3LW wrote their song “Playas Gon’ Play” in 2001.

. . . .

In the Cyrus case, when researching the phrase “We run things, things no run we,” it appears to be a common Jamaican saying. However, it seems that this saying came from May’s song.

Link to the rest at the American University Intellectual Property Brief

1 thought on “Miley Cyrus Sued For Copyright Infringement”

  1. I give it another year or so and there won’t be any phrases that someone else hasn’t used …

    Twas a dark and stormy night … 😉

Comments are closed.