Judge Rules ‘We Are Marshall’ Not a Ripoff, at Least Not Legally Talking

October 22, 2008

You might have thought that We Are Marshall seemed a lot like every other Inspiring Sports Drama you’d ever seen, but a pair of producers recently sought to prove in a court of law that it resembled a specific film — one they’d made six years earlier.

That film, Ashes to Glory: The Tragedy and Triumph of Marshall Football (which IMDB has never heard of), was a documentary about the real-life events depicted in We Are Marshall. The doc’s producers, Deborah Novak and John Witek, sued Warner Bros. for copyright infringement, fraud, and breach of contract, but a U.S. district court judge has ruled against them.

“Though the two works tell the story of the Nov. 14, 1970, airplane crash, that event, and the events that preceded and followed, are all matters of public record which cannot be copyrighted,” the judge wrote in his decision, as reported by Variety.