How Ghost Rider's Creator Was Bankrupted

In a saner world, people might go to law over who _wasn't_ responsible for this

Much heat and light has been generated in the last week over the announcement by DC Comics that they would be publishing a series of prequels to the classic ?Watchmen? comic books ? a series half of which its co-creator, Alan Moore, argues should be his intellectual property, and which should therefore have no prequels at all without his blessing.

The rights and wrongs of this argument ? complicated to some degree by Moore?s use of characters in the public domain and parodies of or allusions to in-copyright characters in his own work, and also the indecipherability of his Northamptonshire deadpan to American audiences ? have been debated extensively.

However, the argument over ?Watchmen? is essentially an argument over philosophy and morality. It is of course also over money, but neither Time Warner, DC?s ultimate parent, nor Alan Moore are in immediate danger of penury, and Moore has historically taken a principled stance on refusing compensation for the use of properties he feels should be his by right.

In contrast, a former Marvel Comics employee has just found himself on the receiving end of a judgement by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, saying that he not only has no rights to a character he created, but that he can no longer identify himself as the creator of that character for financial gain, and is facing bankruptcy as a result.

The character is Ghost Rider, a flame-headed biker from beyond the grave currently being played by Nicholas Cage for the second time in ?Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance?. Its erstwhile creator, Gary Friedrich, started the ball rolling when the first film was in production by suing Marvel Characters Inc, along with a range of other companies involved in the movie including Columbia Pictures and Hasbro. He claimed that ownership of the Ghost Rider character reverted to him in 2001, and therefore that he was entitled to remuneration from the film?s aesthetically inexplicable existence.

His suit was unsuccessful, as it was established that that by banking the cheques for his work ?he was surrendering his rights of ownership to the property. Marvel countersued in 2010, demanding $17,000 in compensation for his sale of ?non-licensed merchandise at conventions. ?To provide some context,??Ghost Rider?grossed $237m at the box office worldwide.

Marvel has now agreed to drop its countersuit, thus ending a series of legal and travel expenses which Friedrich can ill afford, if he pays this sum and undertakes no longer to profit from selling unlicensed Ghost Rider paraphernalia or his status as the character?s creator. He can still sign autographs, but only on approved merchandise.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1924564/news/1924564/

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