Lawsuit Against John Cena, Jack Swagger’s Theme, ECW Rating
- The WWE, John Cena and Sony BMG Music are currently embroiled in a lawsuit with The Royalty Network Inc surrounding the intellectual property of John Cena’s “It’s My Time” entrance music.
The plaintiff claims that WWE have been using the music under false pretenses, in that the copyright was signed over to them by somebody who doesn’t have the power to do so, and therefore are requesting that all properties containing the music (games, DVDs, CDs) be destroyed and that WWE pay them damages of $150,000.00 plus court fees.
John Cena is listed in the lawsuit because he added lyrics to the music and is therefore trying to pass it off as his own, when they claim the music never legally belonged to him or the WWE.
If the plaintiff wins Cena would obviously have to give up his entrance music and WWE would have to literally edit out every piece of merchandise that is still on retail and re-release it with new music.
Of course WWE may just write them a nice fee to forget about it all.
You can access the full case files for a $.08 per page on the New York Southern District Court’s Electronic Court Filings (ECF) System:
https://ecf.nysd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?333752
- Speaking of entrance music Jack Swagger has been given the entrance music of the recently released Lance Cade, which closely resembles Testify by Rage Against The Machine. Lets hope there are no more lawsuits.
- Tuesday’s ECW on Sci-Fi drew a 1.3 cable rating.
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They just now relized that John Cena was using that theme song?
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
how can they have only just realised that its stupid he has had the theme song for years now
oh give me a f’n break their just now throwing a bitchfit? get over it! if he’s been using it they should drop it!
It’s not always as easy as that. The law’s the law.
You have to know that not everyone is a wrestling fan. That’s why they just realized it now.
hah! They just want to sap money off of the WWE. Now that VInce is making money again, everyone is getting anxious about wanting a piece of it. ok if he did add lyrics (cena) then it is a parody and all they need to do is say so plus look at girlfriend by avril lavrigne it supposedly was copied from boyfriend by whoever the name is no big fuss there my point exactly they are just trying to be a b*i*t*c*h about it b/c they are jealous of the success that VInce and the WWE and the wrestlers have
The issue isn’t necessarily that he is using the song, but more that it’s just come to their attention, and if the WWE are not the holders of the copyright to the song, then they need to back-pay royalties for the time that the WWE have used it. If Sony are the legal copyright owners, then they are entitled to be paid royalties for the use of their song by WWE.
MSG, you claim that because Cena added lyrics to it, it’s a parody? That’s incorrect, it’s a remix. Regardless, if it’s using the music owned by someone else, then royalties must be paid. Think of all the parodies by “Weird” Al Yankovich. He pays royalties to the copyright holders to all the songs he parodies.
For the record, I am a HUGE WWE fan, so don’t think I’m against the WWE in any way, but all owners of copyrights in any medium, music, art, etc, are entitled to be paid if people wish to use their legal property.
ya thats bull shit how they barly found out,just like world wild fund find wwf found out years later wwe/wwf was us the initials wwf