Travis Scott Copyright Claims Over ‘ASTROWORLD’ and ‘UTOPIA’ Are Voluntarily Dismissed

A copyright dispute involving Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD and UTOPIA has ended without a public explanation of its underlying resolution. Songwriters Dion Norman and Derrick Ordogne voluntarily dismissed their claims against Scott and Sony Music on Friday, October 9, bringing a close to a case filed in early 2024.

The available court filing does not say whether the dismissal followed a settlement. Neither side has publicly clarified why the claims were dropped. That distinction matters: a voluntary dismissal ends the action, but it does not itself reveal whether there was a private agreement, a reassessment of the case, or another reason for the plaintiffs’ decision.

The dispute centered on a short, repeated vocal phrase: “Alright.” Norman and Ordogne co-wrote DJ Jimi’s 1992 song B***hes (Reply). Their lawsuit alleged that Scott used an uncleared sample of the phrase in “STARGAZING,” from 2018’s ASTROWORLD, and “TIL FURTHER NOTICE,” from 2023’s UTOPIA.

Scott and Sony disputed the premise that the phrase could support the claim. Their representatives argued that a repeated use of such a common expression was too simple, trite, and clichéd to meet the minimum creativity required for copyright protection. The voluntary dismissal means that argument was not publicly resolved through a final ruling in this case.

What the claim was about

At issue was not an allegation that either album copied the whole of DJ Jimi’s 1992 track. The plaintiffs’ argument, as described in the lawsuit, focused specifically on the repetition of “Alright.” They contended that the use was not cleared, pointing to other releases that had legal sample agreements involving the same material: Kid Cudi’s “Girls,” Cardi B’s “Bickenhead,” and Diddy’s “Need Somebody.”

In music, a sample generally refers to audio taken from an existing recording and incorporated into another work. A sample clearance is an agreement that permits that use. The case’s central friction was therefore unusually narrow: whether this particular recurring phrase was sufficiently original and protectable to require the kind of permission the plaintiffs said was missing.

That is different from a broad claim that two songs share a mood, an influence, or a familiar musical building block. The competing positions described in the case were more direct. Norman and Ordogne alleged unlicensed use of a component from their earlier song, while Scott and Sony maintained that the component was an everyday phrase lacking the required creative threshold.

The dismissal closes the lawsuit, but it does not establish a public answer to whether the phrase was protectable or whether its use required clearance.

Related coverage includes Travis Scott Copyright Claims Over ‘ASTROWORLD’ and ‘UTOPIA’ Dropped.

Why the lack of a ruling is significant

A case can be important even when it does not culminate in a decision. Here, the dismissal leaves several potentially interesting questions unanswered, including the factual basis for the parties’ positions and whether any private terms were reached. The filing reportedly provides no settlement details, and there has been no public comment from either side explaining the outcome.

For listeners, that means it would be inaccurate to treat the end of the lawsuit as a legal declaration that either side’s argument was correct. A dismissed claim is not the same thing as a court finding that no infringement occurred. It is also not, on its own, confirmation that the plaintiffs’ allegations were validated. It simply means the plaintiffs elected to end their pursuit of the claims against Scott and Sony Music.

The case also illustrates why disputes over sampling can become complicated even when the portion at issue appears brief. Songs can involve writers, producers, performers, labels, recordings, compositions, and prior agreements. Yet the legal question described here was pared down to the alleged use of two words in repetition and whether that expression carried enough original creative authorship to be protected.

Metro Boomin and James Blake had already been removed

“TIL FURTHER NOTICE” includes work from Metro Boomin and James Blake, and both were initially named as defendants. Norman and Ordogne dropped the producers from the proceedings earlier in the year, before the remaining claims against Scott and Sony Music were voluntarily dismissed.

That procedural detail is useful because it shows the case had already narrowed before its conclusion. By October 9, the legal focus was no longer on all of the original defendants. The final dismissal removes the remaining pursuit described in the case, while leaving the public without a detailed account of why the plaintiffs chose that route.

Two albums, one disputed phrase

The allegations linked releases separated by five years. “STARGAZING” appeared on ASTROWORLD in 2018, while “TIL FURTHER NOTICE” arrived with UTOPIA in 2023. The lawsuit filed in early 2024 treated the recurring “Alright” phrase as the connection between them.

That framing put extra emphasis on repetition. The claim was not limited to one appearance on one track; the plaintiffs alleged the phrase was used across both albums without authorization. Scott and Sony’s response, meanwhile, attacked the protectability of the phrase itself rather than accepting that the repeated word sequence constituted copyrightable material.

There is a practical lesson for readers following music-rights stories: terms such as “sample,” “clearance,” “copyright claim,” and “dismissal” should not be flattened into a single conclusion. The presence of an allegation does not prove it, a defense argument is not a ruling, and a dismissal can close litigation without making the parties’ private reasoning public.

A music dispute with a gaming-adjacent backdrop

The legal development arrives while Scott’s work is also being discussed in connection with Grand Theft Auto VI. He released the single “RHYNO” for the game’s soundtrack and has teased a strip-club collaboration connected to the game. Those projects are separate from the copyright dispute, but they underline how music releases can travel across album cycles, soundtrack work, and game culture at the same time.

For a closer look at another recent rap release on the calendar, see Young Nudy’s announced Just Doin Me album.

As for the Scott case, the concrete public record is straightforward: Norman and Ordogne voluntarily dismissed their claims against Scott and Sony Music; Metro Boomin and James Blake had been removed earlier; and no public settlement explanation or court decision on the disputed “Alright” phrase has been identified. The legal fight is over, but its central copyright question remains unanswered in public.