Miley Cyrus has finally settled a $300 million copyright lawsuit brought against her in March 2018.
The Jamaican songwriter Michael May – aka Flourgon – sued the singer and her label, RCA, in March 2018. He claimed her song “We Can’t Stop” stole material from his own track, “We Run Things”, from 1988.
The main similarity in question was the “We Can’t Stop” lyric: “We run things, things don't run we.” Flourgon claimed that this too closely resembled his own (admittedly very similar) lyrics: “We run things, things no run we.”
However, at the time, Cyrus’ lawyers argued that the lyrics weren’t copyrightable due to their own origins in a pre-existing Jamaican Patois phrase: “wi run tings, tings nuh run wi.”
Either way, Miley, May, and Sony ended the lawsuit with prejudice on Friday (meaning it can’t be filed again). A settlement agreement has been signed, but the proceeds haven’t been revealed, Reuters reports.
“We Can’t Stop” was the lead single from Miley Cyrus’s 2013 album Bangerz and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in the same year, coming in just behind Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”. What a time to be alive.