WWE Settles Lawsuit Over WCW Theme Music

WWE Settles Lawsuit Over WCW Theme Music
May 9, 2014

Source: Pwinsider.com

The lawsuit between WWE, Michael Hayes, WWE composer Jim Johnston and Badstreet, USA and WCW Slamjam theme music composer James Papa was officially settled with a court filing on May 5.

Per the filing, the two sides resolved their issues after an Alternative Dispute Resolution conference. The announcement comes after WWE Network versions of WCW PPV’s using the Slamjam CD era theme songs were placed on the Network. These replaced versions of the PPV that had edited out the original music. It’s not confirmed, but it’s likely that the settlement included the company buying the rights to the WCW music.

Another lawsuit brought against the company by Harry “Slash” Grivas and Roderick Kohn for the rights to the original music used in ECW that WWE had been using was resolved with a settlement, which saw WWE purchase the catalog outright.

Papa filed his lawsuit in July 2012. He claimed the WWE was using the material without his permission, had co-opted copyright registrations for the songs, and wrongly attributed them to Johnston and had cost Papa money after the former WWE videogame licensee reached out to him about the rights to “Badstreet, USA” for a videogame only to drop interest and use a “clone” of the song that WWE provided instead.

He later filed an amended lawsuit against WWE, Hayes, Johnston, WWE’s Stephanie Music Publishing Inc., VE Newco LLC, the parent company of Vivendi Entertainment who handles the distribution of WWE Blu-rays and DVDs), Yukes, and Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two Interactive recently acquired the license for the WWE videgames last year after THQ filed for bankruptcy.