I’m sure none of you are reading this blog before poring over the NS forums with your cup of coffee or OJ or whatever it is you kids drink these days. So you are well aware that skiing’s version of the McCurry vs. McDonald’s legal battle is about to go DOWN! If you somehow missed that thread, it states that Warren Miller Entertainment (a soulless entity run by Miller’s kid) is suing Level 1 Productions for using their intellectual property (i.e. Warren Miller’s voice). Now I never did make it to law school, but that seems like a rather ridiculous claim. Judging from the public opinion poll that is NS, most 15-year-old boys also agree that this be some buuuullshit. There are boycotts and hellstorms promised by every kid from Cali, to Minnesota, to the icy East. As a supporter of peaceful social action in any context, my instinct is to throw some wood on that fire and yell BURN BABY BURN, or more accurately- boycott baby boycott!
BUT after careful consideration of the evidence before me- Do NOT boycott. In fact, go buy that Warren Miller movie that you have ignored every time you pass it in the Walmart DVD section. You see, boycotts don’t work in the skiing world. We are all too materialistic. When we’re told we shouldn’t buy something, we actually end up buying more than we would have before.
Where am I getting this asinine bullshit? Well most of you are too young to remember it, but it all began in a year we called 2004. Matchstick Productions was trying to push Poorboyz and Level 1 out of the market. They saw their edge as the only major freeski filmmaker fading, and they engaged in all sorts of sordid business practices to try and keep their place. There were battles over riders, distributors, and magazine/catalog covers. Oh it was a NS shit storm like no other. Boycotts of varying magnitudes were declared, and one ambitious Newschoolers actually theorized that if MSP were forced to close, Seth Morrison would switch film companies and all would be set right with the world.
Guess what? It didn’t work. Nobody actually boycotted MSP. In fact, they’re bigger and badder than ever. If anyone was going to boycott them, don’t you think it would be because they’ve made the exact same movie for the past 5-10 years? Or because of the cheesy dramatic monologues they keep granting to skiers with no wit or self awareness?
The same is true for WM films. If people armed with the knowledge that they have been screwing over their namesake and using his prerecorded voiceovers are still buying the films, are they really going to stop because they sued Level 1? No.
Happy hating.
