Songwriters Dion Norman and Derrick Ordogne dropped their copyright case against Travis Scott and Sony Music on Friday (Oct 9), ending a fight over the chanted "alright" that opens their 1992 record "Bitches (Reply)." The notice of voluntary dismissal they filed in federal court in New Orleans does not say whether anyone was paid to make the case go away.

The dismissal came without prejudice, which leaves the pair free to bring the same claims again. They did not need a judge's signature to end the case. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41 lets a plaintiff walk away before the defendants answer the complaint or move for summary judgment. According to the notice, Scott's side had done neither in the nearly three years since the suit was filed on January 25, 2024.

Two Scott records from two different album eras sat at the center of the complaint. "Stargazing," the opening track on 2018's Astroworld, debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Til Further Notice," which closes 2023's Utopia, entered at No. 38. The suit claimed the "alright" vocal had its pitch and tone altered before landing in both songs, citing the 3:46 mark in "Stargazing" and six separate spots in "Til Further Notice."

Norman and Ordogne wrote and recorded "Bitches (Reply)" in 1991, and it surfaced the next year on DJ Jimi's New Orleans bounce album It's Jimi. Its first sixteen seconds, nine shouted "alrights" followed by a single line, became one of the most borrowed passages in rap. The pair's original complaint listed 19 tracks that had sampled or interpolated the song, including Cardi B's "Bickenhead," Kid Cudi's "Girls" and Nelly's "Tip Drill."

In a second amended complaint filed in July 2024, the songwriters recast that list as proof of a working market. They described those records as covered by licensing agreements that credit them as writers. The filing said Sony itself had signed sample licenses with the pair before, pointing to Project Pat's "Chickenhead," which used the same run of vocals. It also noted that Norman and Ordogne already hold a writing credit on Utopia, on "Modern Jam," through an interpolation of "Where They At," another song they wrote for DJ Jimi.

The plaintiffs leaned hardest on a single email from the other side. After Utopia came out, they said, a sample clearance vendor working for the defendants contacted them about clearing the "alright" sample on "Til Further Notice." The complaint read that outreach as a confession: "Defendants admitted to the unauthorized use of 'Bitches Reply.'"

Scott's lawyers answered in June 2024 with a motion to dismiss built on the idea that nobody owns the word "alright," even when it is said three times in a row. They argued the phrase lacked the "minimal creativity required for copyright protection," pointing to older hits that used it, from the Beatles' "Revolution" to Earth, Wind & Fire's "Let's Groove." The same motion argued the "Stargazing" claims came too late and questioned when the songwriters registered their copyright.

The songwriters responded six weeks later by widening the target. Their amended complaint stopped describing three "alrights" and claimed the whole opening, from 0:01 to 0:16. It then asked for a permanent injunction barring any reproduction, sale or public performance of both Scott songs, a remedy that could have pulled them from Spotify and Apple Music. They also asked to be credited on any award or public honor tied to either track.

From there the case stalled on a question of geography rather than music. Scott and Sony renewed their bid to dismiss on jurisdiction and venue grounds, and in December 2025 U.S. District Judge Brandon S. Long denied it while letting them raise the issue again after limited discovery. Metro Boomin and James Blake, both credited writers on "Til Further Notice," had been named as defendants and were dropped earlier this year, leaving Scott and Sony to carry the rest.

No court ever ruled on the question the case was built around. Short, common phrases generally fall outside copyright, while a specific recorded performance of those words is protected as a sound recording. "Bitches (Reply)" has collected writer credits for three decades in the space between those two ideas. Producers eyeing a famous vocal snippet face the same two-sided clearance laid out in HitsCulture's sample-clearance guide, where clearing the words and clearing the recording are separate conversations with separate owners.

The dismissal lands as a fresh test of that terrain gets started: the Bill Withers catalog owner's suit over Olivia Dean's "I've Seen It," filed October 1 against labels and publishers rather than Dean herself. For Scott, it closes a second Utopia dispute in four months. In June, singer-songwriter Victory Boyd dismissed her "Telekinesis" suit against Scott, SZA and Future with prejudice, under terms both sides filed, so her claims cannot return the way Norman and Ordogne's still can.

Scott's catalog has drawn this kind of claim before. A 2020 lawsuit claiming his No. 1 single "Highest in the Room" copied a song called "Cartier" was dismissed in 2021 at the request of both parties. The nine "alrights" that open "Bitches (Reply)" now go back to work with their copyright status exactly as unsettled as it was on January 25, 2024.