John Cena and WWE Lawsuit | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Right now though, since we have time a little bit

0:02 Speaker 1: of music news. But this particular item, this news item

0:08 Speaker 1: actually combines, well, we could do this on two different shows.

0:14 Speaker 1: This is appropriate for Matt connorton Unleashed because we do

0:18 Speaker 1: talk about things going on in the music industry on

0:21 Speaker 1: this show. I also, of course host along with our

0:24 Speaker 1: friend Eric Pilcher, the podcast called Tough Bumps, which is

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0:31 Speaker 1: probably do one this weekend sometime on Sunday. That is

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0:54 Speaker 1: and this particular news item, So we're going to talk

0:57 Speaker 1: about this now, but we might also talk about it

0:59 Speaker 1: on Tough Bump with Eric. This is from Billboard. John

1:03 Speaker 1: Cena hit with lawsuit over famed horns sample in theme

1:08 Speaker 1: song The Time Is Now. The WWE wrestler turned movie

1:13 Speaker 1: star is facing legal claims that the intro to his

1:17 Speaker 1: theme song is based on a sample of a nineteen

1:20 Speaker 1: seventy four recording that was never properly cleared. Now you

1:25 Speaker 1: hear about this, well, you don't hear about it nearly

1:27 Speaker 1: as much anymore because everyone's gotten a lot smarter about

1:29 Speaker 1: it legally. But you know, I remember growing up, there

1:33 Speaker 1: were always stories about in hip hop, a hip hop

1:36 Speaker 1: artist releases a song, there's a sample in the song,

1:41 Speaker 1: very often from an early R and B song, or

1:43 Speaker 1: you know, it could be from anything. But so these

1:47 Speaker 1: artists would release this music, these hip hop songs with

1:50 Speaker 1: samples in them that were not cleared with the rights

1:54 Speaker 1: holder of whoever owns that audio, whether it be the

1:57 Speaker 1: original artists who did that song that the sample is

2:00 Speaker 1: taken from, or a record label or whomever. Right, so,

2:05 Speaker 1: uncleared samples became a problem, and then you know, obviously

2:10 Speaker 1: there's been a lot of litigation about that over the years,

2:12 Speaker 1: and I think you don't really hear about that much today.

2:16 Speaker 1: That is a story that you heard a lot in

2:18 Speaker 1: the eighties and the nineties and even in the two thousands,

2:21 Speaker 1: But today you don't really hear a lot of stories

2:23 Speaker 1: about will this artist is getting sued because they have

2:26 Speaker 1: an uncleared sample on their song or on their album.

2:32 Speaker 1: But here now John Cena, of course, John Cena has

2:36 Speaker 1: become a mainstream celebrity. He is one of the celebrities.

2:39 Speaker 1: He's one of the wrestlers who professional wrestlers who's has

2:42 Speaker 1: transcended wrestling and gone on to be a mainstream celebrity. Obviously,

2:47 Speaker 1: the biggest example of that being The Rock. The Rock,

2:50 Speaker 1: one of the highest, if not the highest paid movie

2:52 Speaker 1: star in Hollywood who initially became famous because of wrestling.

2:57 Speaker 1: That's why we call him the Rock, even though his

2:59 Speaker 1: real name is Dwayn Johnssen, Dwain the Rock Johnson. But

3:04 Speaker 1: you know, he's the greatest example of that. And then

3:06 Speaker 1: of course there's other people who you know, hul Cogan,

3:09 Speaker 1: who passed away not too long ago, hul Cogan, who

3:13 Speaker 1: did not find mainstream success in cinema. His movies were

3:17 Speaker 1: largely panned because of the films that he started in.

3:20 Speaker 1: Not you know, I'm not talking about Rocky, I'm talking

3:22 Speaker 1: about the films where Hogan was actually the star are

3:24 Speaker 1: generally pretty awful. So but that doesn't change the fact

3:29 Speaker 1: that hul Cogan, despite not really finding success outside of

3:33 Speaker 1: professional wrestling. Absolutely one of the most famous people on

3:37 Speaker 1: the planet. So, but John Cena has also Now John

3:41 Speaker 1: Cena is not he has not hit the stratosphere that

3:44 Speaker 1: the Rock has hit, of course, but John Cena very

3:47 Speaker 1: successful in Hollywood and has transcended professional wrestling. He also

3:54 Speaker 1: had and this was really sort of a part of

3:57 Speaker 1: his professional wrestling career. He did release an album. He

4:01 Speaker 1: has one hip hop album that he released on WWE's

4:05 Speaker 1: label at the time, and one of the tracks from

4:08 Speaker 1: that album is called the Time Is Now, and the

4:12 Speaker 1: Time Is Now is the song that John Cena comes

4:16 Speaker 1: out to now. John Cena has also been in the news.

4:19 Speaker 1: When I say it comes out to I mean when

4:21 Speaker 1: he comes out of the entrance and goes to the

4:23 Speaker 1: ring for people who are like, what if you're not

4:25 Speaker 1: a wrestling fan, you don't know that. So that's what

4:28 Speaker 1: I mean by come out to now. John Cena also

4:32 Speaker 1: has been relevant within wrestling recently because he's on his

4:36 Speaker 1: retirement tour. He's about to have his final wrestling match

4:40 Speaker 1: ever in the WWE, and you know, he's forty eight

4:45 Speaker 1: years old and this is it. He's going to commit

4:47 Speaker 1: to Hollywood full time, which makes sense and of course,

4:52 Speaker 1: there was the John Cena heel turn that happened a

4:56 Speaker 1: while back, which actually got a lot of mainstream media

4:59 Speaker 1: at even though it was part of a professional wrestling storyline,

5:03 Speaker 1: but it was such a big deal that the mainstream

5:06 Speaker 1: media paid attention to it. So a lot of interesting

5:08 Speaker 1: things and a He'll turn again for people who don't know,

5:10 Speaker 1: that's when a good guy becomes a bad guy. So

5:13 Speaker 1: John Cena during his final year in WWE became for

5:17 Speaker 1: a short time, he became a bad guy. He became

5:20 Speaker 1: a villain, which I thought was very entertaining, but not

5:22 Speaker 1: everyone liked it. But anyway, so John Cena is pretty

5:26 Speaker 1: relevant these days on multiple levels. He just apparently he

5:30 Speaker 1: just was on the Joe Rogan podcast Joe Rogan. I mean,

5:35 Speaker 1: I know his stock has fallen a little bit, but

5:37 Speaker 1: he's still one of the if not the biggest podcasts

5:40 Speaker 1: in the world. And Johnsena was just on there. So

5:42 Speaker 1: John Cen is very relevant right now. But this theme

5:45 Speaker 1: song that he's been using for twenty years, apparently there

5:49 Speaker 1: is a problem with the sample the horn section. Now

5:53 Speaker 1: I should what I'll do is I should have had

5:57 Speaker 1: this ready, but let me grab his theme song the

6:00 Speaker 1: Time is Now. I think he says in the song

6:04 Speaker 1: you can't see me the time is now, because that's

6:06 Speaker 1: you know, his thing too, you can't see me. Okay.

6:10 Speaker 1: I thought it was called My Time is Now, but

6:12 Speaker 1: apparently it's actually called the Time is Now. So there's

6:15 Speaker 1: there's horns in it, even though it's a hip hop song.

6:18 Speaker 1: Let's see here it is the Time is Now. I'll

6:20 Speaker 1: just play a little bit of it for you. Why

6:22 Speaker 1: does this have a parental advisory on it? There's no? Uh,

6:25 Speaker 1: all right, well, here's definitely a clean version. I was

6:27 Speaker 1: gonna say, I don't think there's any swears in it.

6:28 Speaker 1: Here's the clean This one's definitely clean, though, except there

6:32 Speaker 1: might be a commercial to sit through before I play this.

6:35 Speaker 1: But just so if you're not familiar with the song,

6:37 Speaker 1: so you can hear the horns, I don't hear anything. Oh,

6:43 Speaker 1: here we go, hang on, all right, here it comes.

6:52 Speaker 1: You can hear the horns right now. Okay, So he

7:06 Speaker 1: actually does say my Time is Now, but the song

7:08 Speaker 1: is called the Time is Now. All right, let's pause that.

7:13 Speaker 1: Uh So there is an uncleared sample on that apparently.

7:17 Speaker 1: So here's the article again. This is from Billboard WWE

7:23 Speaker 1: superstar and actor John Cena is facing a lawsuit over

7:27 Speaker 1: the iconic horn riff from his entrance theme. The time

7:30 Speaker 1: is now a questionable legal case, but one that shines

7:33 Speaker 1: a light on a tortured history of samples and credits

7:37 Speaker 1: behind the famed song. That's interesting. So apparently there have

7:41 Speaker 1: been other legal issues with the song that I was

7:43 Speaker 1: not aware of, it says. The lawsuit was filed by

7:46 Speaker 1: the daughter of Pete Schofield, who's nineteen seventy four recording

7:50 Speaker 1: of the Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia. Everybody

7:53 Speaker 1: knows that song, right, That's the night that the Lights

7:55 Speaker 1: Went Out in Georgia is the undisputed source of the

7:59 Speaker 1: blaring horn blasts at the start of Sina's two thousand

8:04 Speaker 1: and five track. In it, she claims that Sina and

8:07 Speaker 1: the WWE failed to properly clear the sample and breached

8:12 Speaker 1: an earlier fifty thousand dollars settlement over the dispute. Now,

8:17 Speaker 1: I did not know. This is news to me. I

8:20 Speaker 1: did not know that that had ever happened. I think

8:22 Speaker 1: they kept it very quiet. I did not know that

8:25 Speaker 1: there was ever a problem established previously over that horn section.

8:31 Speaker 1: I do want to and I didn't know that there

8:33 Speaker 1: was a settlement. Now you might be thinking, though I

8:35 Speaker 1: do know this, you might be thinking, why if this

8:38 Speaker 1: was already settled, why is this coming up again. There's

8:41 Speaker 1: a very good reason. There's a very good reason. But

8:43 Speaker 1: we'll come back to that, because I want to pull

8:45 Speaker 1: this up now. I know the song the Nights the

8:51 Speaker 1: Night the Lights went out in Georgia. I do not know.

8:57 Speaker 1: I can't remember, though, Like I haven't heard it in

8:58 Speaker 1: a long time. Is that like if I pull that

9:02 Speaker 1: song up, which I'm going to do now, and we

9:05 Speaker 1: listen to that, are we going to hear that exact?

9:08 Speaker 1: I just want to hear it for myself. Is it

9:10 Speaker 1: really sampled from that? Because I haven't heard that song

9:14 Speaker 1: in forever, but I don't remember hearing in that song,

9:19 Speaker 1: you know the horns. So let's let's find out. Pets

9:25 Speaker 1: Goofield and the Canadians the Night the Lights went out

9:28 Speaker 1: in Georgia. Let's see. I don't know where in the

9:32 Speaker 1: song the horns appear, but let's, uh, let's find out.

10:12 Speaker 1: So this is obviously not the version of the song

10:15 Speaker 1: that we're used to hearing. I can't remember because the

10:17 Speaker 1: version we're used to hearing. The big hit song The

10:19 Speaker 1: Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia has vocals. I

10:22 Speaker 1: can't remember who does it, but this is Pete Schofield,

10:25 Speaker 1: you know, jazz musician, doing his version of it, which

10:27 Speaker 1: is an instrumental. I'm hearing a lot of horns, and

10:30 Speaker 1: the horns sound similar in tone and timbore to the

10:34 Speaker 1: horns in John Cena's theme. But I don't hear so far.

10:39 Speaker 1: I don't hear that actual do you. I don't hear

10:44 Speaker 1: the actual riff. But let's listen to a little bit

10:46 Speaker 1: more of this. Not hearing it? Where is it? Is

11:27 Speaker 1: it right at the beginning? Because I failed to unmute

11:30 Speaker 1: this right at the beginning. Let's go back to the

11:32 Speaker 1: very beginning. We're not going to listen to a whole thing,

11:34 Speaker 1: I promise, because just kill me. I don't like this

11:36 Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But here, oh, there it is. It's

11:42 Speaker 1: in the beginning. Okay, here, all right, okay, guilty. Yeah,

11:53 Speaker 1: they definitely took it from that, all right, no getting

11:56 Speaker 1: around it. I'm glad I would back to the beginning.

12:01 Speaker 1: Let's see, let's go back to this article. Okay, so

12:04 Speaker 1: they settled, They settled that for fifty grand. Now there's

12:10 Speaker 1: more to this article. Let's back up a little bit. Actually, Okay,

12:18 Speaker 1: so the lawsuit was filed by the daughter of Petschofield,

12:22 Speaker 1: who's nineteen seventy four recording is the undisputed source of

12:25 Speaker 1: the Blaring Horns hornblasts at the start of Sina's two

12:29 Speaker 1: thousand and five track. In it, she claims that Sena

12:31 Speaker 1: and the WWE failed to properly clear the sample and

12:34 Speaker 1: breached an earlier fifty thousand dollars settlement over the dispute. Okay,

12:39 Speaker 1: so Kimschofield rights. This is from her December second lawsuit,

12:46 Speaker 1: obtained by Billboard, which names both John Cena and WWE

12:52 Speaker 1: as defendants. Quote. Every effort at informed resolution has been

12:56 Speaker 1: met with threats, misrepresentations, and intimidation tactic, leaving plaintiff with

13:01 Speaker 1: no recourse but to seek relief from this court. Unquote.

13:06 Speaker 1: Now again, this was previously settled, So why is this

13:09 Speaker 1: coming up again? Says here The time is now, in

13:12 Speaker 1: which Sina wraps over a beat created by producer Jake

13:15 Speaker 1: One was released in two thousand and five by Columbia

13:18 Speaker 1: House Records and WWE Music Group. The track served as

13:21 Speaker 1: a theme song during Sena's rise to superstardom and later

13:25 Speaker 1: became a popular track in social media memes. The track

13:28 Speaker 1: will likely play at some point during his final WWE

13:31 Speaker 1: appearance next week before he retires from wrestling. The song

13:34 Speaker 1: is something of a crediting nightmare. The famed horns are

13:38 Speaker 1: pulled from Schofield's recording of The Night Went Out in

13:42 Speaker 1: Georgia I'm Sorry the Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,

13:45 Speaker 1: which is a cover of a composition by songwriter Bobby

13:48 Speaker 1: Russell that's also been released by multiple other artists, including

13:52 Speaker 1: Vicky Lawrence, Oh, Vicky Lawrence, She's the one who had

13:54 Speaker 1: the big hit with it, Vicky Lawrence and Reba McIntyre.

13:58 Speaker 1: Sina song also samples heavily mop's two thousand hip hop

14:01 Speaker 1: classic Anti Up, which itself drew on samples from Sam

14:05 Speaker 1: and Dave's soul sister Brown Sugar. Yeah, that's a lot

14:09 Speaker 1: of sampling. The complex audio lineage has already led to

14:15 Speaker 1: previous legal battles. Back in two thousand and eight, MOP

14:18 Speaker 1: sued WWE Oversena's use of the Anti Up sample, claiming

14:23 Speaker 1: that they had expressly refused to approve the use of

14:26 Speaker 1: their track and that WWE had cleared it by getting

14:29 Speaker 1: a signature from a receptionist at an unaffiliated company. I

14:34 Speaker 1: didn't know about any of this. This is fascinating, but

14:37 Speaker 1: that case was quickly dropped a few months later on

14:40 Speaker 1: undisclosed terms. In Schofield's lawsuit, filed with the help of

14:46 Speaker 1: lawyers Kim, Schofield paints a complicated picture of her allegations.

14:51 Speaker 1: She says she finally didn't know about seeing his use

14:54 Speaker 1: of the song until twenty fifteen, and that they had

14:58 Speaker 1: signed a settlement deal in twenty seventeen. This is important

15:02 Speaker 1: with WWE for fifty thousand dollars covering the sample of

15:07 Speaker 1: the sound recording, but at some point later, she claims,

15:12 Speaker 1: they realized they also owned publishing rights two aspects of

15:18 Speaker 1: schofield Scofields nineteen seventy four song that were distinct from

15:23 Speaker 1: Russell's original composition. This get's very complicated. Such allegations could

15:28 Speaker 1: face an uphill climb in court. Decade old claims of

15:31 Speaker 1: copyright infringement could very likely be barred in the statute

15:35 Speaker 1: of limitations or by earlier settlement. Yeah, I mean copyright law,

15:40 Speaker 1: trademark law, intellectual property law. All of it gets very

15:44 Speaker 1: very complicated. I find it fascinating. I hope some of

15:47 Speaker 1: you do. It's also not legally clear that Schofield can

15:51 Speaker 1: claim the rights she says she owns, nor that she

15:54 Speaker 1: can blame WWE for the fact that she was unaware

15:57 Speaker 1: of them when she signed the earlier deal. Reps for

16:02 Speaker 1: Sena and the WWE did not immediately return her request

16:06 Speaker 1: for a comment on Friday. In her lawsuit, Schofield says

16:10 Speaker 1: lawyers for WWE told her that the twenty seventeen settlement

16:14 Speaker 1: was final and binding on any claims related to the

16:19 Speaker 1: Time is Now, and that she could not later reopen

16:22 Speaker 1: negotiations merely because she had seller's remorse. They also allegedly

16:27 Speaker 1: told her that they had fully cleared the sample by

16:30 Speaker 1: inking a license with the heirs of Bobby Russell, the

16:34 Speaker 1: songwriter who wrote the song that Schofield recorded. The lawsuit

16:40 Speaker 1: also names Russell's airs as defendants. The younger Schofield claims

16:44 Speaker 1: they have improperly been receiving the royalties for Sena's use

16:47 Speaker 1: of the sample, and that they have recently threatened to

16:50 Speaker 1: sue her if she does not stop claiming her own

16:52 Speaker 1: rights to the song. The Russell Airs could not immediately

16:56 Speaker 1: be located for comment. While cover artists can get recording

17:00 Speaker 1: copyrights to their specific performances, they cannot typically claim composition rights,

17:06 Speaker 1: a common sense rule, since the underlying music in a

17:08 Speaker 1: cover was necessarily written by someone else. In fact, making

17:12 Speaker 1: substantial changes to the underlining song can turn a legal

17:16 Speaker 1: cover track into an unauthorized derivative. Now there's something else

17:21 Speaker 1: to this that this article leaves out. That I was

17:24 Speaker 1: reading last night, and that is and I'm surprised it's

17:29 Speaker 1: not included in this article. Part of what Kim Schofield

17:33 Speaker 1: is mad about is that she claims that when that

17:38 Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars settlement was reached, because that seems like

17:42 Speaker 1: a low number to me for this kind of case,

17:44 Speaker 1: when she agreed and her lawyers agreed to that fifty

17:48 Speaker 1: thousand dollars settlement, they were unaware, and she has claimed

17:54 Speaker 1: that WWE and their attorneys intentionally tried to hide this

17:59 Speaker 1: from her. She was unaware that that song was about

18:04 Speaker 1: to be used in a national advertising campaign for I

18:10 Speaker 1: Think It's Toyota, that I Think there were Toyota ads

18:15 Speaker 1: with John Cena's voice in the ad is the voiceover,

18:19 Speaker 1: and that that song is playing in the ad, specifically

18:22 Speaker 1: with that horn riff that's in the ad, and she

18:28 Speaker 1: agreed to that fifty thousand dollars figure, not knowing that

18:34 Speaker 1: two days later, two days after she agreed to that settlement,

18:41 Speaker 1: that ad campaign rolls out and on televisions throughout the

18:45 Speaker 1: United States, people are seeing this ad with that song

18:49 Speaker 1: and that horns sample in the ad for Toyota, And

18:57 Speaker 1: she claims that they intentionally tried to hide that from her.

19:00 Speaker 1: They concealed that from her because they knew she would

19:03 Speaker 1: ask for a bigger number if she knew that that

19:06 Speaker 1: song was about to be used in a national advertising campaign,

19:09 Speaker 1: a high profile national advertising campaign. So she's mad about that.

19:14 Speaker 1: So that's also part of her claim here. But so

19:17 Speaker 1: there you go. That is again that is from Billboard

19:23 Speaker 1: dot com. So there's a lot a lot there