Lawsuit Accuses WWE of Infringing Cena Theme Copyright

A federal lawsuit filed this week in the Southern District of New York accuses WWE, its parent company TKO Group Holdings, wrestler John Cena, and several others of copyright infringement over the use of an unlicensed musical sample in Cena's longtime entrance theme, "The Time Is Now." The complaint, brought by Kim Schofield, alleges that the song's distinctive horn-driven intro and outro were sampled without permission from a 1974 recording arranged by her late father, Canadian bandleader Pete Schofield.

The suit centers on Pete Schofield's instrumental cover of the Bobby Russell composition "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," a 1973 hit for Vicki Lawrence and later recorded by Reba McEntire. According to the complaint, the original Russell song did not include the horn elements in question, which Pete Schofield added as original arrangements. Music producer Jacob Brian Dutton, known professionally as Jake One, is accused of sampling those specific intro and outro sections in 2003 to create the beat for Cena's theme, one of the most recognizable tunes in professional wrestling.

Schofield, who now holds the copyrights to her father's arrangement and recording, claims her...