John Cena and WWE Lawsuit | Matt Connarton Unleashed

Right now though, since we have time a little bit of music news. But this particular item, this news item actually combines, well, we could do this on two different shows. This is appropriate for Matt connorton Unleashed because we do talk about things going on in the music industry on this show. I also, of course host along with our friend Eric Pilcher, the podcast called Tough Bumps, which is about wrestling, and we do that on the weekend. We'll probably do one this weekend sometime on Sunday.

That is completely separate from WMNH. Of course, that is strictly a podcast. You can find it on the IPM nation YouTube channel. We share it out on Facebook and everywhere else so and you can subscribe to it on your podcast platform of choice. Please subscribe to the Tough Bumps podcast. We would love your support. So we do that every weekend and this particular news item, So we're going to talk about this now, but we might also talk about it on Tough Bump with Eric. This is from Billboard. John Cena hit with lawsuit over famed horns sample in theme song The Time Is Now.

The WWE wrestler turned movie star is facing legal claims that the intro to his theme song is based on a sample of a nineteen seventy four recording that was never properly cleared. Now you hear about this, well, you don't hear about it nearly as much anymore because everyone's gotten a lot smarter about it legally. But you know, I remember growing up, there were always stories about in hip hop, a hip hop artist releases a song, there's a sample in the song, very often from an early R and B song, or you know, it could be from anything.

But so these artists would release this music, these hip hop songs with samples in them that were not cleared with the rights holder of whoever owns that audio, whether it be the original artists who did that song that the sample is taken from, or a record label or whomever. Right, so, uncleared samples became a problem, and then you know, obviously there's been a lot of litigation about that over the years, and I think you don't really hear about that much today. That is a story that you heard a lot in the eighties and the nineties and even in the two thousands, But today you don't really hear a lot of stories about will this artist is getting sued because they have an uncleared sample on their song or on their album.

But here now John Cena, of course, John Cena has become a mainstream celebrity. He is one of the celebrities. He's one of the wrestlers who professional wrestlers who's has transcended wrestling and gone on to be a mainstream celebrity. Obviously, the biggest example of that being The Rock. The Rock, one of the highest, if not the highest paid movie star in Hollywood who initially became famous because of wrestling. That's why we call him the Rock, even though his real name is Dwayn Johnssen, Dwain the Rock Johnson.

But you know, he's the greatest example of that. And then of course there's other people who you know, hul Cogan, who passed away not too long ago, hul Cogan, who did not find mainstream success in cinema. His movies were largely panned because of the films that he started in. Not you know, I'm not talking about Rocky, I'm talking about the films where Hogan was actually the star are generally pretty awful. So but that doesn't change the fact that hul Cogan, despite not really finding success outside of professional wrestling.

Absolutely one of the most famous people on the planet. So, but John Cena has also Now John Cena is not he has not hit the stratosphere that the Rock has hit, of course, but John Cena very successful in Hollywood and has transcended professional wrestling. He also

had and this was really sort of a part of his professional wrestling career. He did release an album. He has one hip hop album that he released on WWE's label at the time, and one of the tracks from that album is called the Time Is Now, and the Time Is Now is the song that John Cena comes out to now. John Cena has also been in the news. When I say it comes out to I mean when he comes out of the entrance and goes to the ring for people who are like, what if you're not a wrestling fan, you don't know that.

So that's what I mean by come out to now. John Cena also has been relevant within wrestling recently because he's on his retirement tour. He's about to have his final wrestling match ever in the WWE, and you know, he's forty eight years old and this is it. He's going to commit to Hollywood full time, which makes sense and of course, there was the John Cena heel turn that happened a while back, which actually got a lot of mainstream media at even though it was part of a professional wrestling storyline, but it was such a big deal that the mainstream media paid attention to it.

So a lot of interesting things and a He'll turn again for people who don't know, that's when a good guy becomes a bad guy. So John Cena during his final year in WWE became for a short time, he became a bad guy. He became a villain, which I thought was very entertaining, but not everyone liked it. But anyway, so John Cena is pretty relevant these days on multiple levels. He just apparently he just was on the Joe Rogan podcast Joe Rogan. I mean, I know his stock has fallen a little bit, but he's still one of the if not the biggest podcasts in the world.

And Johnsena was just on there. So John Cen is very relevant right now. But this theme song that he's been using for twenty years, apparently there is a problem with the sample the horn section. Now I should what I'll do is I should have had this ready, but let me grab his theme song the Time is Now. I think he says in the song you can't see me the time is now, because that's you know, his thing too, you can't see me. Okay. I thought it was called My Time is Now, but apparently it's actually called the Time is Now.

So there's there's horns in it, even though it's a hip hop song. Let's see here it is the Time is Now. I'll just play a little bit of it for you. Why does this have a parental advisory on it? There's no? Uh, all right, well, here's definitely a clean version. I was gonna say, I don't think there's any swears in it. Here's the clean This one's definitely clean, though, except there might be a commercial to sit through before I play this. But just so if you're not familiar with the song, so you can hear the horns, I don't hear anything.

Oh, here we go, hang on, all right, here it comes.

You can hear the horns right now. Okay, So he actually does say my Time is Now, but the song is called the Time is Now. All right, let's pause that. Uh So there is an uncleared sample on that apparently. So here's the article again. This is from Billboard WWE superstar and actor John Cena is facing a lawsuit over the iconic horn riff from his entrance theme. The time is now a questionable legal case, but one that shines a light on a tortured history of samples and credits behind the famed song. That's interesting.

So apparently there have been other legal issues with the song that I was not aware of, it says. The lawsuit was filed by the daughter of Pete Schofield, who's nineteen seventy four recording of the Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia. Everybody knows that song, right, That's the night that the Lights Went Out in Georgia is the undisputed source of the blaring horn blasts at the start of Sina's two thousand and five track. In it, she claims that Sina and the WWE failed to properly clear the sample and breached an earlier fifty thousand dollars settlement over the dispute.

Now, I did not know. This is news to me. I did not know that that had ever happened. I think they kept it very quiet. I did not know that there was ever a problem established previously over that horn section. I do want to and I didn't know that there was a settlement. Now you might be thinking, though I do know this, you might be thinking, why if this was already settled, why is this coming up again. There's a very good reason. There's a very good reason. But we'll come back to that, because I want to pull this up now.

I know the song the Nights the Night the Lights went out in Georgia. I do not know.

I can't remember, though, Like I haven't heard it in a long time. Is that like if I pull that song up, which I'm going to do now, and we listen to that, are we going to hear that exact? I just want to hear it for myself. Is it really sampled from that? Because I haven't heard that song in forever, but I don't remember hearing in that song,

you know the horns. So let's let's find out. Pets Goofield and the Canadians the Night the Lights went out in Georgia. Let's see. I don't know where in the song the horns appear, but let's, uh, let's find out.

So this is obviously not the version of the song that we're used to hearing. I can't remember because the version we're used to hearing. The big hit song The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia has vocals. I can't remember who does it, but this is Pete Schofield, you know, jazz musician, doing his version of it, which is an instrumental. I'm hearing a lot of horns, and the horns sound similar in tone and timbore to the horns in John Cena's theme. But I don't hear so far. I don't hear that actual do you.

I don't hear the actual riff. But let's listen to a little bit more of this. Not hearing it? Where is it? Is it right at the beginning? Because I failed to unmute this right at the beginning. Let's go back to the very beginning. We're not going to listen to a whole thing, I promise, because just kill me. I don't like this kind of stuff. But here, oh, there it is. It's in the beginning. Okay, here, all right, okay, guilty. Yeah, they definitely took it from that, all right, no getting around it. I'm glad I would back to the beginning.

Let's see, let's go back to this article. Okay, so they settled, They settled that for fifty grand. Now there's more to this article. Let's back up a little bit. Actually, Okay, so the lawsuit was filed by the daughter of Petschofield, who's nineteen seventy four recording is the undisputed source of the Blaring Horns hornblasts at the start of Sina's two thousand and five track. In it, she claims that Sena and the WWE failed to properly clear the sample and breached an earlier fifty thousand dollars settlement over the dispute.

Okay, so Kimschofield rights. This is from her December second lawsuit, obtained by Billboard, which names both John Cena and WWE as defendants. Quote. Every effort at informed resolution has been met with threats, misrepresentations, and intimidation tactic, leaving plaintiff with no recourse but to seek relief from this court. Unquote. Now again, this was previously settled, So why is this coming up again? Says here The time is now, in which Sina wraps over a beat created by producer Jake One was released in two thousand and five by Columbia House Records and WWE Music Group.

The track served as a theme song during Sena's rise to superstardom and later became a popular track in social media memes. The track will likely play at some point during his final WWE appearance next week before he retires from wrestling. The song is something of a crediting nightmare. The famed horns are pulled from Schofield's recording of The Night Went Out in Georgia I'm Sorry the Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, which is a cover of a composition by songwriter Bobby Russell that's also been released by multiple other artists, including Vicky Lawrence, Oh, Vicky Lawrence, She's the one who had the big hit with it, Vicky Lawrence and Reba McIntyre.

Sina song also samples heavily mop's two thousand hip hop classic Anti Up, which itself drew on samples from Sam and Dave's soul sister Brown Sugar. Yeah, that's a lot of sampling. The complex audio lineage has already led to previous legal battles. Back in two thousand and eight, MOP sued WWE Oversena's use of the Anti Up sample, claiming that they had expressly refused to approve the use of their track and that WWE had cleared it by getting a signature from a receptionist at an unaffiliated company.

I didn't know about any of this. This is fascinating, but that case was quickly dropped a few months later on undisclosed terms. In Schofield's lawsuit, filed with the help of lawyers Kim, Schofield paints a complicated picture of her allegations. She says she finally didn't know about seeing his use of the song until twenty fifteen, and that they had signed a settlement deal in twenty seventeen. This is important with WWE for fifty thousand dollars covering the sample of the sound recording, but at some point later, she claims, they realized they also owned publishing rights two aspects of schofield Scofields nineteen seventy four song that were distinct from Russell's original composition.

This get's very complicated. Such allegations could face an uphill climb in court. Decade old claims of copyright infringement could very likely be barred in the statute of limitations or by earlier settlement. Yeah, I mean copyright law, trademark law, intellectual property law. All of it gets very very complicated. I find it fascinating. I hope some of you do. It's also not legally clear that Schofield can claim the rights she says she owns, nor that she can blame WWE for the fact that she was unaware of them when she signed the earlier deal.

Reps for Sena and the WWE did not immediately return her request for a comment on Friday. In her lawsuit, Schofield says lawyers for WWE told her that the twenty seventeen settlement was final and binding on any claims related to the Time is Now, and that she could not later reopen negotiations merely because she had seller's remorse. They also allegedly told her that they had fully cleared the sample by inking a license with the heirs of Bobby Russell, the songwriter who wrote the song that Schofield recorded.

The lawsuit also names Russell's airs as defendants. The younger Schofield claims they have improperly been receiving the royalties for Sena's use of the sample, and that they have recently threatened to sue her if she does not stop claiming her own rights to the song. The Russell Airs could not immediately be located for comment. While cover artists can get recording copyrights to their specific performances, they cannot typically claim composition rights, a common sense rule, since the underlying music in a cover was necessarily written by someone else.

In fact, making substantial changes to the underlining song can turn a legal cover track into an unauthorized derivative. Now there's something else to this that this article leaves out. That I was reading last night, and that is and I'm surprised it's not included in this article. Part of what Kim Schofield is mad about is that she claims that when that fifty thousand dollars settlement was reached, because that seems like a low number to me for this kind of case, when she agreed and her lawyers agreed to that fifty thousand dollars settlement, they were unaware, and she has claimed that WWE and their attorneys intentionally tried to hide this from her.

She was unaware that that song was about to be used in a national advertising campaign for I Think It's Toyota, that I Think there were Toyota ads with John Cena's voice in the ad is the voiceover, and that that song is playing in the ad, specifically with that horn riff that's in the ad, and she agreed to that fifty thousand dollars figure, not knowing that two days later, two days after she agreed to that settlement, that ad campaign rolls out and on televisions throughout the United States, people are seeing this ad with that song and that horns sample in the ad for Toyota, And she claims that they intentionally tried to hide that from her.

They concealed that from her because they knew she would ask for a bigger number if she knew that that song was about to be used in a national advertising campaign, a high profile national advertising campaign. So she's mad about that. So that's also part of her claim here. But so there you go. That is again that is from Billboard dot com. So there's a lot a lot there

John Cena and WWE Lawsuit | Matt Connarton Unleashed

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