Post Malone didn’t mince words over his pending lawsuit over his 2019 hit, “Circles.” The suit was filed by Canadian musician Tyler Armes, who claims he’s owed songwriting credit.
According to Rolling Stone, Armes says he’s due partial ownership of the song because he contributed a guitar riff to it. The singer adds he was originally offered publishing royalties capped at five percent, but Posty’s team withdrew the offer when he tried negotiating for a higher number.
Now, Malone’s firing back. Through his lawyers, he responded that Armes contributed an “admittedly extremely commonplace guitar chord progression” and that a “fragment of guitar melody” he sang did not make it into the final piece.
Rolling Stone reports Malone further responds, “Armes does not have a shred of affirmative evidence with which to meet his burden of proof that his alleged contribution to the guitar melody is original. Armes admitted that his contributions did not even rise to the level of originality, which is also required in addition to the fixation requirement. He either conceded that his ideas were commonplace musical devices or failed to meet his burden to demonstrate any originality otherwise. Armes thus cannot even establish the threshold requirement that he made a copyrightable contribution.”
Posty seeks to have the lawsuit dismissed. A hearing has been set for April 4.
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