MILEY SUED FOR STEALING A SONG

Singer Miley Cyrus needs to stop making money off We Can’t Stop... according to a Jamaican dancehall artist, who claims her hit would be nothing without his 1988 classic. On Tuesday, the singer was sued for $300 million (over 100 crores) by Michael May, who said that the pop singer’s 2013 smash hit, We Can’t Stop, closely resembles a song that he had recorded 25 years earlier, and that she is infringing his copyright.

May, who performs as Flourgon, said that his 1988 song We Run Things has been “a favourite for lovers of reggae music worldwide” since reaching No. 1 in his home country, and that about 50 percent of We Can’t Stop comes from him.

He accused Cyrus and her label of misappropriating his material, including the phrase “We run things. Things no run we,” which she sings as “We run things. Things don’t run we.” Representatives for Cyrus, 25, did not immediately respond to requests for comments. May said that he sought to protect his work last year with the US Copyright Office, and in November won “formal copyright protection” for all musical arrangements in We Run Things.

He said that Cyrus’ song “owes the basis of its charttopping popularity to and its highly-lucrative success to plaintiff May’s protected, unique, creative and original content.”

The Kingston, Jamaica resident is also seeking a halt to further sales and performances of the song, according to his complaint filed with the US District Court in Manhattan.

While the complaint did not specify damages, May’s lawyers in a press statement described it as a $300 million case. The song is from Cyrus’ album Bangerz and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2013. It was kept from the top by Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, which itself is the subject of a high-profile copyright case over its resemblance to a 1977 Marvin Gaye song.

THE SONG, WE CAN’T STOP, WHICH MICHAEL MAY CLAIMS AS HIS, FEATURES IN MILEY’S ALBUM BANGERZ, AND PEAKED AT NO. 2 ON THE BILLBOARD HOT 100 IN AUGUST 2013

PHOTO: ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES/AFP Miley Cyrus’s representatives have not responded to the allegation