According to a ruling first obtained and reported by Billboard, a federal judge has dismissed a copyright lawsuit against Beyoncé's Parkwood Entertainment over a sample used in her 2022 Renaissance track "Alien Superstar." The dismissal came not on the merits of the copyright claims but because of a fundamental legal defect: the company that brought the lawsuit did not exist when it filed.
Judge Mark C. Scarsi issued the ruling on Friday, June 26. The lawsuit had been filed in July 2025 by Florida-based Hirose Enterprises LLC, which claimed to own the rights to a 1998 song called "Moonraker" by house musician John Holiday. A sample from that track opens "Alien Superstar" with the now-familiar 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."
Parkwood had properly cleared the sample directly from Holiday. He is credited in the Renaissance liner notes and was paid $10,000 plus 0.5% of royalties from the track, which reached No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. Hirose Enterprises argued that it, not Holiday, owned the "Moonraker" copyrights and should have been part of the licensing process. Parkwood countered that no paperwork documented the claimed transfer of rights.
Judge Scarsi never had to weigh those arguments. His investigation revealed that Hirose Enterprises LLC was not formally incorporated until one week after the lawsuit was filed. That timing meant the company had no legal standing to sue at the time it brought the case.
The judge even worked the song's own lyrics into his ruling. "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 — that is, a jurisdictional inquiry — before reaching any of the parties' merits arguments," he wrote. He then concluded: "Plaintiff had no legal existence at the time it brought suit, so it cannot have held a stake in the outcome of the litigation at the time it filed the complaint."
The case was thrown out against all defendants, including Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing, and Warner Chappell. Beyoncé herself was not named in the lawsuit. Hirose Enterprises LLC is owned by Shuji Hirose, the co-founder of the now-defunct indie label Soundmen on Wax. Representatives for the parties did not return requests for comment.
Hirose Enterprises still has the right to appeal the dismissal if it chooses to pursue the copyright claims further.
