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Post Malone settles authorship dispute over Circles

By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 22 March 2023

Post Malone has settled a legal battle over who wrote his 2019 track ‘Circles’. Which is no fun at all. It was about to get to court and everything.

Malone was sued by Tyler Armes – a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and member of Canadian rap-rock outfit Down With Webster – who joined the rapper and producer Frank Dukes for an all-night jamming session back in August 2018. He claimed that during that session he contributed to the writing of ‘Circles’.

That the jam session occurred was not disputed, however Malone played down the role Armes played in the creation of what became ‘Circles’. That was despite Armes claiming that Malone’s manager had initially offered him a 5% split of the copyright in that song on the basis he was indeed a co-writer.

Malone’s bid to have the litigation dismissed was unsuccessful, although he did get the lawsuit cutback somewhat. Had the case got to court, the jury would have been asked to ascertain what role, if any, Armes had in co-writing an earlier work that was then morphed into ‘Circles’.

If the jury had decided that Armes and Malone had collaborated on writing a song in 2018, and that ‘Circles’ was a derivative work of that song, Armes would have been due a share of the hit and the royalties it generated.

But none of that will now happen. According to Courthouse News, just as jury selection was about to get underway legal reps for both sides informed the judge that they had reached a settlement in principle. They now have until the end of May to finalise that deal and formally dismiss the lawsuit.