Miley Cyrus Settles $300 Million Lawsuit Over "We Can’t Stop"

Miley Cyrus was accused of appropriating many things during her Bangerz era, but Jamaican songwriter Flourgon wanted to hold her accountable over one appropriation in particular. Flourgon – real name Michael May – claimed that Cyrus’ 2013 hit, “We Can’t Stop”, copied a lyric from his own 1988 song, “We Run Things”. 

In March 2018, May filed a $300 million copyright lawsuit against Cyrus and her label, RCA, for this alleged theft. It argued that the “We Can’t Stop” lyric, “We run things, things don’t run we,” too closely resembled his own, “We run things, things no run we.” Cyrus’ lawyers responded 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.”

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May, Cyrus and Sony ended the lawsuit with prejudice on Friday, meaning it cannot be filed again. The details of the signed settlement agreement were not revealed to the public. 

It’s quite ironic that “We Can’t Stop” was targeted for copyright infringement because in 2013, it sat right below Robin Thicke‘s “Blurred Lines” on the Hot 100 – a song which suffered one of the most notable copyright cases of the century. HNHH recently spoke to two industry professionals to explain how copyright infringement works, diving into the lawsuits against “Blurred Lines” and Juice WRLD’s “Lucid Dreams”.