Post Malone says in a new court filing that the Canadian musician suing him for songwriting credit on his 2019 hit “Circles” didn’t contribute anything “original” to the composition, Rolling Stone reports. According to Post Malone, Tyler Armes “was present for one early session” with Malone and songwriter Frank Dukes in 2018 but only contributed “an admittedly extremely commonplace guitar chord progression,” known as 1-4-5 or C-F-G, and possibly a non-recorded “fragment of a guitar melody that Armes claims he sung to Post.”

Down With Webster member Tyler Armes, who filed a lawsuit against Post Malone in 2020, says he was originally offered a five percent cut of the publishing royalties, but the offer was revoked when he tried to negotiate a larger share. Malone, who filed a lawsuit of his own against Armes, maintains that he never intended to include Armes as a co-author of the song, didn’t record him during the session, and always had discretion to accept or reject his suggestions.

The new paperwork filed in federal court in Los Angeles includes a copy of Armes’ deposition in which he describes the chord progression as “extremely” common. “Armes admitted that his contributions did not even rise to the level of originality, which is also required in addition to the fixation requirement,” the documents read. “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.”

“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,” Post Malone argues. He’s asking a judge to dismiss Armes’ lawsuit with prejudice and make a declaratory judgment at a hearing next month stating explicitly that Armes is “not a joint author.”

“We believe that the motion for summary judgment is a desperate attempt by Post Malone and Frank Dukes to try to avoid a trial in this action,” Armes’ lawyer Allison Hart said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “We are confident that we will prevail in defeating the motion and look forward to going before a jury.”