I'm No Lawyer But...

[Low_Ki]

Has anyone else noticed how TNA is pretty much ripping off some ex-WCW/WWE theme music?

The Wolfpac theme is the most obvious rip off, but others have distinct similarities. Hogan's is a blatent rip of the original nWo theme, and also Ken Anderson's theme sounds kind of familiar to his WWE theme.

My question is, surely there is a lawsuit there as the WWE owns the copyrights to the nWo, the Wolfpac and of course Mr Kennedy's theme. Could the WWE sue if they wanted? What are your thoughts?

 

[Dave]

It has been said multiple times around here that music is being stolen from entities in the past.

However, strictly, there is no rule against it. These are called "Jimmy Hart versions" and they are not illegal. For some reason, if you play the song in a different key and there is enough variation in the way it is played, then there is no legal issue. It is a very strange rule but is very true. Make no mistake that WWE would be screwing TNA to the wall right now if the versions were the exact same. In fact, I don't think there is anything that Vince would love more.

However, as I say, TNA are fine from a legal standpoint. Ethically though, it seems a little bit sketchy but of course they are going to try and capitalize on the fame that the competitors had before, they would be silly not to.

 

[The Aussie Invasion]

Happens all the time. Booker T's TNA theme was the same as his WWE theme, just faster and higher pitched. Christian's TNA theme was basically an intrumental version of Just Close Your Eyes by Waterproof Blonde you might not agree with that one, but I can hear it to a certain extent. There are MANY MANY more.

 

[Davi323]

At least for Kennedy and the Band, I don't think the WWE has any legal standing. If anything, rights to those would go to the artists Airborne and the estate of Jimmy Hendrix/whoever owns his library. The WWE, in those two cases that were specifically mentioned,is not the owner, rather more like a licensed user. If a lawsuit were to come for plagerism, it would have to come from whoever legally owns the rights to those songs. Even then, courts are weird about it...Coldplay (fuck you, douchebags) totally got away with blatantly ripping off Joe Satriani's "If I could Fly" with their dumb song "Viva La Vida", (and when I say blatant, I mean fucking blatant, again, fuck you, douchebags), but they forced ex-Beatle George Harrison to pay a fortune to buy the rights to "He's So Fine" a song they claimed "My Sweet Lord" plagiarized...so even if TNA got sued, there is no certainty to what the outcome would be.

 

[closet_fan]

does anyone remember DDP's theme song from his WCW days? you can tell that was a blatant rip-off of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." and after listening to it now, the entire track was ripped off piece by piece, but with different notes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XfWx-LRBUM - DDP Theme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYxkezUr8MQ - Nirvana

 

[It's Damn Real!]

does anyone remember DDP's theme song from his WCW days? you can tell that was a blatant rip-off of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." and after listening to it now, the entire track was ripped off piece by piece, but with different notes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XfWx-LRBUM - DDP Theme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYxkezUr8MQ - Nirvana

And Angelina Love's theme is a "Papercut" by Linkin Park remix/re-do. It happens.

I don't see what the big deal is here, really? With certain wrestlers – notably Nash/Hall, etc. they wanted to recapture the ambiance/past-glory by using the "same" theme songs – slightly altered for legal purposes, of course.

So long as they're within legal bounds, I see no reason why this shouldn't be done.

 

[Lee]

does anyone remember DDP's theme song from his WCW days? you can tell that was a blatant rip-off of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." and after listening to it now, the entire track was ripped off piece by piece, but with different notes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XfWx-LRBUM - DDP Theme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYxkezUr8MQ - Nirvana

And Nirvana ripped off Boston's "More than a feeling" which in turn was a rip off of "Louie Louie" by Richard Berry. There's so many rip offs in music that there's no surprise that there's more than a few similar in TNA.

However think of it from a logical point of view, you're a wrestler you've wrestled WWF/WCW/WWE and now to TNA, you like your music so you yourself will want one very similar, it's hardly going to annoy WWE too much, let alone to the point of suing so why not just leave them be?

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Not to deter this thread any from the OP, but I think another reason you don't see the WWE sueing TNA over "similarity" here is because (a) the WWE is not that fickle, despite what you may think, and (b) in doing so, they'd be acknowledging the existence of TNA on a grand scale. They'd actually be crediting the company with hurting them in some facet, which is something Vince does not want to do by any means as far as I'm concerned. Concessions of defeat aren't exactly his forté.

 

[closet_fan]

WWE is not that fickle, despite what you may think

Didn't they sue a wrestling organization that used the word "Global" because it sounded too much like World?

you never really hear anything regarding the E suing anyone over small/petty things. but if this is true, that's as petty as you can get.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Didn't they sue a wrestling organization that used the word "Global" because it sounded too much like World?

you never really hear anything regarding the E suing anyone over small/petty things. but if this is true, that's as petty as you can get.

I have no idea, but even if they did, and even if they were that fickle, I still think the idea of acknowledging the existence of TNA by sueing them over the use of trademarked entrance music is still too far past Vince's intelligence. Yes, on one hand you strike a blow to your competition, but on the other you actually admit they're your competition.

 

[harrythem]

To be honest I think the world should sue Jimmy Hart for the years and years of dreadful "tribute" style monstrocities he's givem to wrestling. I tried listening to the tna entrance album and it all kinda blends together. I agree that even if WWE were irked by tna they'd not react as that could end up getting people actually looking to see wat tna is

 

[De Mysteriis Dom Satanas]

If anyone should be sued, it should be Jimmy Hart for thinking he has any musical talent whatsoever, not TNA for doing something completely and utterly legal.

Protip: This is extremely common in quite a few genres of popular music anyway. It's called a 'remix', and it's a highly overrated form of music very popular with overhyped, overcommercialized, undertalented artists.

 

[closet_fan]

i do buy the fact that vince will never sue TNA for small/trivial things. But if TNA knows this, do we continue seeing them push the envelope with things that hint of the E?

it's like when a kid holds a finger by you:

"don't touch me."
"i'm not touching you."

we have seen some of it already with that horrible rings storyline involving abyss. and hebner mentioning the Montreal incident

 

[hardy8778]

If ya haven't noticed Vince McMahon owns Tna secretly but the wrestling themes were stolen but do ya think Vine really cares about that some of the wrestlers are under merchandising contracts with the wwe that's why Mr. Anderson, or the Pope go under different names now don't ya think that if they went by the names they used when they wrestled fo Vince he would be really pissed off

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

I don't think they'd sue...as far as i can remember, when vince bought wcw, he didn't sign the rights to the wolfpac trademark, same with the nwo theme hogan uses....I personally think vince doesn't give a tiny rats ass about tna, he in his own world, wwe on top of the world, better than any other wrestling promotion in america, he doesn't care about the competition tna bring...

 

[The Heart Brake Stinger]

im almost positive that when hogan originally debut on tna they reported that his entrance song was actually the song from that japan organization's nwo that wcw originally got the idea of the nwo from. plus last i heard kevin nash held all rights to the wolfpac (name, music, etc.)

 

[Greenlight13]

Dale Oliver, TNA's music guy, does this for a living. Every star that comes in to the company that used a pre-existing song on the indies, or even the ones that have never worked the indies in their lives i.e. Matt Morgan, have their chosen themes covered and remixed by him.

Seriously, go here, click the word "show" and see for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Oliver#Remakes

WCW used to do it as well back in the 90s.

How many wrestlers walk through a curtain each yeah? They simply do not have the time to compose hundreds of pieces of original music for their wrestlers, because while theme music can help get a wrestler over, it's very close to the bottom of things that need worrying about before they debut.

And as someone already pointed out, legally, there's no problem with it, because if you look at the state of music today, most of it is aped from somewhere else. As we speak I'm working on an essay about the state of music copyright and the issues of sampling, remixing and mash-ups. Led Zeppelin ripped off old blues music. Muddy Waters admits that he took his music from established musicians before him. It goes around and around.

 

[flocker]

Entrance music is what people worry about? Really?

Let the talent do their stuff. Let the talkers talk. Let the wrestlers wrestle. Let the beautiful people be HOT.

Less old guys wrestling. Less young guys who can't say anything that makes me care talking.

 

[Megadeth]

I am fairly certain that the WWE does not actually own the nWo theme, or most of the WCW theme songs. If you ever watch any of the DVDs that include WCW footage, most of the time they replace the song's with the wrestlers WWE theme, or if they were never in WWE, some generic song. That way they dont have to pay a licensing fee to use them. Even in the Hulk Hogan Ultimate Anthology DVD, in his Wrestlemania X8 match with the Rock, they replaced the nWo them with a generic song.
I believe most of the theme songs in WCW were either by Jimmy Hart, and he owns retained the rights to the songs, or they were generic TBS/TNT music used by WCW, so they are still owned by Time Warner. In Jericho's book he talks about his theme songs in WCW being Basketball Highlight music from the TBS music library. His first theme song he said was called "Basketball Highlights #12", which was a rip-off of "only the Young" by Journey. And when he went heel in WCW, Jericho goes on to say he went to the production truck and had them change it to "Basketball Highlights #17" which was a Pearl Jam rip off.

 

[Wainy]

All they have to do is go down the old "It's a parody" route. Weird Al Yankovic has been getting away with it since the 80's. As long as they can prove it's a parody rather than a direct copy, it's all legal baby!

 

[Vintage]

WWE licenses their music. They also have an in house producer who does pretty much every other theme they use. You'll notice primarily the old WCW wrestlers use variations of their entrances while the WWE people pretty much have to reinvent themselves and changing their entrances. Also, I'm probably crazy but I think WWE needs and want TNA to thrive.

 

[Via Armbar]

It comes down to the songs being slight variations rather than copies. Of course they sound similar, it was done on purpose. Those are all recognizable tunes that the fans can identify with. They could go out and create awesome new themes for each wrestler but that could cost a lot of money. It's much easier and budget friendly to have someone slightly change and existing theme than to start from scratch. They aren't dumb enough to use something that they could get in trouble for legally. WCW did it with many songs that were popluar songs outside of wrestling and were just fine. Sure it's a little corny but not a big deal.

 

[rondiesel2005]

I thought the same thing when I thought they were stealing theme songs from WWE, the way i see it TNA doesnt even have any idea for theme songs, they figure ok since Nash use to be part of NWO give him an NWO theme music but change it a little bit same goes for Scott Hall when he use to be Razor Ramon in WWE and use a similar theme song in TNA..WOW TNA is out of ideas

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

Moving this to the Wrestling Spam Section...

 

[Tiger Chaos Theory]

Lariat just took 1/4 of most of these guys post count.