Lawsuit filed over John Cena’s iconic theme song for use of horn arrangement

A lawsuit was filed in New York this week accusing WWE, TKO, John Cena, and others of using an unlicensed sample to create parts of John Cena’s iconic theme song The Time Is Now according to Brandon Thurston of POSTWrestling.com.

The lawsuit claims that the horn arrangements which are part of the intro and outro were stolen from the 1974 cover recording by Pete Schofield, a Canadian artist who passed away. The lawsuit was filed by his daughter, Kim, who now has full copyright to her dad’s music, including the sample in question.

The horn arrangement is part of Schofield’s instrumental cover of The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia, which she claims were added to the original song by her father.

Schofield said that in 2017, she reached a settlement with WWE over the song in the range of $50,000 but now wants more after she is claiming that the company withheld key information during negotiations.

John Cena retires from active in-ring competition in just a week, with one final match at Saturday Night’s Main Event on December 13 live from Washington, DC.