U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright ruled in favor of a producer and songwriter named Tyler Armes in his publishing conflict with pop star Post Malone.
According to Billboard, Judge Wright said he believes Armes should be able to prove his claim in the court of law that he contributed substantially to the hit song “Circles,” recorded during a studio session in August of 2018.
Wright believes Armes should be able to fight to establish co-credit with producer Frank Dukes and Post Malone on the song.
The “Rockstar” artist wanted to have the claim dismissed, arguing that in the studio, Armes had no “veto power” in the session and thus was ineligible to get songwriting credit.
The judge said, “While Dukes may have controlled the laptop, nothing suggests that he or Post possessed any special veto or decision-making power that Armes did not.”
“Armes’s evidence, if credited, supports the finding that the three musicians shared equal control in the session, making nonhierarchical contributions to a unitary whole,” Judge Wright declared.
Post Malone still does not believe the evidence supports Armes should get the credit he is asking for, which grant him an equal third of the song that has well over 2.9 billion in cumulative radio airplay audience and 732 million U.S. streams as well as 457,000 downloads, according to Billboard.
What helped Armes’ case was a text message to Post Malone’s manager Dre London submitted to the court that read, “Just showed Posty the message/ He said he remembers/ U played a tune on the bass then he played more of it after.”
They offered him 5% credit on the song, and he declined it, leading to the April 2020 legal filing.
The three will bang this out on May 17th in Los Angeles federal court.
