Beyoncé Alien Superstar sample lawsuit dismissed due to procedural error

A federal judge in California has dismissed the copyright lawsuit against Parkwood Entertainment, the label and management company of Beyoncé. The case centered on a sample in the song Alien Superstar, the opening track of her 2022 album Renaissance. The dismissal had nothing to do with the substantive question of whether the sample had been properly cleared: the plaintiff, Florida based Hirose Enterprises LLC, turned out not to exist as a legal entity at the time it filed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in July 2025 with the claim that Hirose Enterprises owns the rights to the 1998 song Moonraker, a recording by John Holiday, the house musician known as Foremost Poets. A spoken introduction from that song opens Alien Superstar: the lines "Please do not be alarmed, remain calm. Do not attempt to leave the dancefloor. The DJ booth is conducting a troubleshoot of the entire system." form the heart of the dispute. Hirose Enterprises was represented by Shuji Hirose, the driving force behind the now defunct record label Soundmen on Wax, which claims to have purchased the rights to Moonraker from Holiday in 1998.

Parkwood had cleared the sample directly with Holiday himself. The artist, who is credited in the extensive liner notes of Renaissance, received $10,000 plus a royalty rate of 0.5 percent of the revenues from Alien Superstar, a song that reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. Parkwood argued that no written documentation exists to support the transfer of rights from Holiday to Soundmen on Wax, whereas US copyright law does require that transfer to be documented in writing. An earlier version of the complaint had already been dismissed in March by Judge Maame Ewusi Mensah Frimpong, who ruled that Hirose had failed to provide the required documentation.

When Hirose Enterprises filed an amended complaint, an even more fundamental problem came to light: the company itself admitted that it had only been incorporated on August 6, 2025, while the complaint had already been filed on July 29, 2025. Judge Mark C. Scarsi of the Central District of California dismissed the case on June 26 for lack of standing. In his ruling, the judge paraphrased the disputed song lyrics in a memorable way: "Please do not be alarmed, remain calm: like the DJ booth referenced in the works at issue, this district judge must conduct a troubleshoot test of the entire system." He then determined that the plaintiff did not legally exist at the time the complaint was filed and therefore had no legitimate stake in its outcome.

Hirose Enterprises attempted to correct the error by arguing that a different entity of the same name registered in Delaware could be substituted in as plaintiff, but never formally filed a request to do so. Because the court ruled that it had never had jurisdiction over the case, Judge Scarsi also found himself unable to grant leave to amend the complaint. In addition to Parkwood, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell were named as defendants; Beyoncé herself was not a party to the case. The dismissal was issued without prejudice, meaning Hirose Enterprises retains the right to appeal.

The outcome fits into a broader pattern in which copyright claims against major artists collapse on procedural grounds before a judge ever weighs the substantive musical and legal arguments. Earlier this year, a similar case against Cardi B in Texas was dismissed because the plaintiffs had not yet registered their copyright at the time the complaint was filed. Claims have also been filed in 2025 against Travis Scott, SZA and Future over their song Telekinesis. For music fans, the case is a striking illustration of just how legally complex sampling can be, even when an artist like Holiday has personally cleared the rights and been paid for them.