Post Malone wants a lawsuit against him over a songwriting credit on his hit song “Circles” dismissed, according to Rolling Stone. Post is being sued by Canadian musician Tyler Armes, who demands a share of the authorship on the song, saying he played a guitar tune that was eventually worked into the final composition. Armes says that Post’s management offered a five percent share of the publishing royalties but withdrew the offer when he tried to negotiate for a larger cut.
However, Post has countered with a new filing saying that Armes did not contribute anything significant or original to the recording or the composition of the song in the one recording session he was present for in August 2018. According to Post’s lawyers, Armes only played an “admittedly extremely commonplace guitar chord progression,” while also possibly singing a “fragment of guitar melody” that went unrecorded.
The documents filed in federal court split absolutely no hairs about it, reading, “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.”
Post and his co-producer/co-defendant Frank Dukes have requested that the case be summarily dismissed in an April 4 hearing. Meanwhile, Post’s manager has suggested that the singer’s follow-up album is being held back by his label.