Warren Miller court case dismissed
22nd January 2011
Last modified on November 23rd, 2022
The ski-film maker’s battle with the company he sold his name to is over. A judge has thrown the case out. It is a legal battle we have followed on PlanetSKI.
Warren Miller needs no introduction as he is the grandfather of extreme skiing films.
He was a pioneer and much of what we see online, in ski bars and elsewhere as people ski down unimaginably steep slopes began with him and his films.
However in 1988 he sold his name and voice (and some would say his soul) to an another company and they set up Warren Miller Entertainment, WME, and continued using his name to make films and push new boundaries in ski-film making.
Warren Miller, the man, had nothing to do with the films for decades even though they bore his name.
Then a couple of years ago he did the voice over for another film “Refresh” made by the company, Level 1 Productions.
WME said this violated their contracts and the sale of his name. The lawyers were called in.
A long case ensued and in October 2010 arbitrators ruled that four contracts signed since Miller sold his company in 1988 give WME exclusive publicity rights to Miller’s name when used in films about skiing and snowboarding.
Now a judge has dismissed the entire case after both sides agreed to pay their own legal costs following the decison of the arbitration court.
None of it is very in spirit with the image of freeriding and the freedoms supposedly represented by big mountain skiing and snowboarding.
But when there is money involved, big money, then things change.
For a look at what all the fuss can sometimes be about below is a trailer for the film by Warren Miller Entertainment that was released at the beginning of this winter.
For the spirit of the mountains
