"Spawn" creator Todd McFarlane has just lost a $15 million jury verdict to former pro hockey player Tony Twist, after the jury determined that "McFarlane and his comic book company, Todd McFarlane Productions Inc., infringed on Twist's publicity rights."
McFarlane claimed his use of the name was protected under the First Amendment. Twist disagreed, saying McFarlane had gone outside the bounds of free speech rights.
"They made Tony into a Mafia boss," said James Holloran, an attorney for Twist. "He was involved in murders and kidnappings and rapes."
2004 has not been a good year for McFarlane in court; earlier, he lost a case to Neil Gaiman over co-ownership of several "Spawn" characters (details from Gaiman's blog here). Nevertheless, as distasteful as McFarlane's behavior has sometimes been, especially to his colleagues, the jury's verdict here seems like a bad precedent for authors and artists.