Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
Miley Cyrus has become the latest pop star to be hit with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit for one of her songs, which reached second place on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013. The song is “We Can’t Stop,” which Michael May, a Jamaican songwriter, alleges bears a striking similarity to his own song, “We Run Things,” a 1988 reggae track that reached No. 1 in Jamaica.
The line in question appears in “We Can’t Stop” as “We run things/things don’t run we,” which May alleges is suspiciously similar to the line “We run things/things no run we,” which appeared in “We Run Things.”
In addition to Cyrus herself, her manager, Larry Rudolph, has also been named as a defendant in the lawsuit, as have writers and producers of the song, including Timothy Thomas, Theron Thomas, and Mike Williams. RCA Records and Sony Music are also defendants in the copyright infringement lawsuit.
To support May’s allegations, the complaint points to a 2015 article in which Theron Thomas talks about how Caribbean music has influenced his own work. It further alleges that Cyrus’s song would not have seen the same success without the stolen elements of Jamaican music, specifically the language of Jamaican Patois. Continue reading ›