Miley Cyrus was sued in September by Tempo Music Investments, a company that claims to have an ownership stake in the 2013 Bruno Mars chart-topper “When I Was Your Man.” The company claims that Cyrus’s 2023 mega-hit “Flowers” — which returned her to the top of the charts, won the Grammy for Record Of The Year, and became the second biggest song of the year — rips off the Mars track and “would not exist” without it. Today, Cyrus’ legal team has filed their first response to the lawsuit.

As Billboard points out, the Cyrus filing argues that the lawsuit has a “fatal flaw”: Bruno Mars and the other co-writers of “When I Was Your Man” opted not to sue. ““Plaintiff unambiguously [says] that it obtained its claimed rights in the ‘When I Was Your Man’ copyright from only one of that musical composition’s four co-authors,” the filing reads. “That is a fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim.”

Tempo acquired what the Cyrus team calls a “partial interest” in the song from co-writer Philip Lawrence, and those “non-exclusive rights” do not give Tempo grounds to sue, Cyrus argues. “Plaintiff brings this copyright infringement action alone — without any of that musical composition’s co-authors or other owners,” lawyer Peter Anderson writes. “Without the consent of the other owners, a grant of rights from just one co-owner does not confer standing.”

Tempo lead counsel Alex Weingarten responded to Billboard that Cyrus’ filing was “intellectually dishonest”: “They’re seeking to make bogus technical arguments because they don’t have an actual substantive defense to the case We’re not an assignee; we’re the owner of the copyright. The law is clear that we have the right to enforce our interest.”