Satanic Temple suing Netflix show for $50 million

After threatening legal action toward Netflix and Waner Bros. Entertainment last week, the Satanic Temple has officially filed suit in response to the show Chilling Adventures of Sabrina supposedly appropriating and stealing the design of their Baphomet statue. The Satanic Temple is suing Netflix for $50 million under copyright infringement.

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In October, the Satanic Temple threatened legal action over their statue being featured in Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina. According to Deadline, the Satanic Temple’s lawyer Bruce Lederman sent an official complaint this morning, Nov 8. You can read the full document here.

“This case presents, among other things, a textbook example of the hornbook explanation of copyright protection that copyright law protects unique expressions, but not the ideas themselves,” Lederman says. “What makes this case particularly striking and significant is that it arises in the context of Defendants who are highly sophisticated media production and distribution companies which blatantly misappropriated Plaintiff’s unique expression of an idea even though they have a long history of vigorously protecting their own intellectual property.”

The Satanic Temple additionally cites that the portrayal of the monument is damaging to their reputation. According to the Temple, the goat-head figure promotes “First Amendment values of separation of church and state and equal protection.”

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Last week, co-founder and spokesperson for the temple, Lucien Greaves, took to Twitter to share that they are suing over the copyrighted monument.

Yes, we are taking legal action regarding #TheChillingAdventuresofSabrina appropriating our copyrighted monument design to promote their asinine Satanic Panic fiction,” Greaves says.

The spokesperson went on to compare their experience to other religions.

I’m amazed that anybody is confused as to why we would seek legal remedy over Sabrina using our monument,” Greaves says. “Would they be as understanding of a fictional show that used a real mosque as the HQ of a terrorist cell? A fictional Blood Libel tale implicating real world Jews?”

To compare the Sabrina statue to the real thing, check out the tweet below.

Additionally, Netflix refuted the Satanic temple’s claims last week.

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“I think that’s kind of a coincidence,” Sabrina production designer Lisa Soper says. “When you look at Baphomet, there’s really only a couple of statues of him—which, they have their statue, and we’ve got our statue in the show.”

“It’s no different from, in my opinion anyhow… from any other of the mass amounts of iterations of him that have been around,” she continues.

What do you think of the lawsuit between the Satanic Temple and Chilling Adventures Of Sabina? Sound off in the comments below.