Beyoncé has been sued for alleged copyright infringement over her 2022 song Alien Superstar.
The Crazy in Love hitmaker is facing a lawsuit from Hirose Enterprise and a producer named Shuji Hirose over the spoken-word sample at the beginning of the track, which appears on her 2022 album Renaissance.
In the court documents, obtained by TMZ, Hirose claimed that he owns the rights to the song Moonraker by John Holiday, and she sampled Moonraker in Alien Superstar’s spoken-word introduction without authorisation.
According to Hirose, Beyoncé and her team failed to clear the sample before releasing Renaissance in July 2022. They obtained a licence for the sample weeks later from Holiday directly, even though Hirose allegedly bought the Moonraker rights from Holiday in 1998.
Hirose claimed that he has notified Beyoncé’s company, Parkwood Entertainment, about the alleged copyright infringement, but she continues to sell the record. He is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction to stop the music superstar from profiting off Moonraker.
This is not the first time Hirose has sued Beyoncé over Alien Superstar. His first copyright infringement lawsuit was thrown out over a basic legal defect in June.
According to Music Business Worldwide, US District Judge Mark C. Scarsi granted Parkwood Entertainment’s motion to dismiss and threw out the entire legal action “for want of standing” because the plaintiff, Hirose Enterprises LLC, didn’t exist at the time the lawsuit was filed. The company was not legally formed until eight days later.
The judge did not rule on whether Beyoncé and her Parkwood team had properly cleared the sample or if Hirose’s lawsuit had any merit.
