Nosferatu Lawsuit Bankrupted Prana Studio

German studio Prana began filming Nosferatu in 1921 without securing the rights to Dracula, the 1897 novel by Irish writer Bram Stoker. After the film appeared in 1922, a woman named Florence Stoker, the writer's widow, sued Prana for $5,000 over copyright infringement. The lawsuit and the film's box-office failure pushed the studio into bankruptcy after its first and only production. A judge gave her ownership of Nosferatu and backed her order to burn every print, effectively making possession illegal, but the film's growing cult status helped several copies survive.

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