!["Simply a Standard 'Circle of Fifths' Chord Progression: Miley Cyrus's Legal Team Highlights Music Theory in New Effort to Prove Her Hit 'Flowers' Does Not Plagiarize Bruno Mars's 'When I Was Your Man'"]](https://backingtracksfullcollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Simply-a-Standard-Circle-of-Fifths-Chord-Progression-Miley-Cyruss-758x426.jpg "\"Simply a Standard 'Circle of Fifths' Chord Progression: Miley Cyrus's Legal Team Highlights Music Theory in New Effort to Prove Her Hit 'Flowers' Does Not Plagiarize Bruno Mars's 'When I Was Your Man'\"] 1")
Miley Cyrus is making a fresh attempt to have the copyright claim brought against her in relation to her 2023 hit Flowers dismissed before it goes to court.
To recap, Cyrus – along with Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack, Flowers’ co-writers – are being accused of ripping off Bruno Mars’ 2012 song, When I Was Your Man… but not by Mars himself. Instead, the challenge is coming from Tempo Music Investments, which previously purchased a ‘piece’ of When I Was Your Man from Philip Lawrence, one of the song’s co-writers.
The case has been rumbling on since 2024, and Cyrus’s legal team tried and failed to have it thrown out in 2025. However, they’re now having another go, saying that no one should be able to claim ownership of “commonplace tropes in breakup songs,” and attempting to discredit the arguments of Anthony Ricigliano, the musicologist being used by Tempo to help them make their case.
In fresh court documents first obtained by Billboard, and then shared by Music Business Worldwide, the top level argument from Cyrus’s camp is that “[When I Was Your] Man, a slow piano ballad, is a breakup song from the perspective of a man who regrets not doing various things he believes could have saved his relationship. On the other hand, Flowers, an upbeat, danceable pop song, is a breakup song from the perspective of a woman rejoicing in her independence and self-reliance.”
The defendants go on to say that Ricigliano “failed to research prior art, claims no similarity in potentially protectable melody, and instead relies on unprotectable pitch sequences and other random, unprotectable elements.” They also make the argument that, even if you view Flowers as a response to When I Was Your Man, which has been suggested, the ‘fair use’ defence applies.
Cyrus’s team is also using music theory to defend itself, arguing that “the melodic similarities that Mr Ricigliano identifies cannot support a copyright infringement claim and must be filtered out,” and that the chord progressions used in both songs are “basic musical building blocks” that aren’t protectable, either.
“For example, Man’s verses and Flowers’ chorus each include A minor, D minor, G major, and C major chords, but Mr Ricigliano admits that is merely a commonplace ‘circle of fifths’ chord progression,” argues Team Cyrus. “ He also raises that both songs use an additional chord with a B pitch, but the chords used are different, and the similarity is commonplace.”
Cyrus’s team goes on to argue that the ‘grand pause’ before each song’s chorus shouldn’t be subject to copyright, either, as this is another “musical building block” that “simply means silence”.
There’s some detailed comparison of the lyrics, too, and the argument from the defendants that “besides being about a breakup, the ideas of Flowers are completely contrary to those of Man.”
Tempo is yet to comment on this latest development, but Billboard reports that it will have the chance to respond to the court next month.
