NEW YORK: The Satanic Temple sued Netflix and Warner Bros Entertainment on Thursday, seeking more than $50 million for their alleged unauthorised use of a statue of the goat-headed deity Baphomet in the series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
In a complaint filed with the US District Court, the plaintiff, whose stated mission includes encouraging benevolence and empathy among people rejecting tyrannical authority, accused the defendants of copyright infringement, trademark violations and injury to its reputation.
Netflix referred a request for comment to Warner Bros, a unit of AT&T Inc Warner Bros spokesman Paul McGuire said that company does not discuss pending litigation.
According to the complaint, Netflix, which distributes Sabrina, and Warner Bros, which produces it, misappropriated the Salem, Massachusetts-based plaintiff’s “Baphomet with Children” in ways implying that it “stands for evil.”
The Satanic Temple, whose formal name is United Federation of Churches LLC, said the statue has appeared in at least four of the first 10 Sabrina episodes, which were released on Oct 26, and was a “key element” of the season finale.
In its complaint, The Satanic Temple also objected that the evil antagonists in Sabrina were depicted in a manner “in stark contrast to TST’s tenets and beliefs.”
The lawsuit also seeks the exclusion or digital removal of the plaintiff’s statue from the show’s episodes.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is based on the comic book series with the same name from Archie Comics.
Its main character is a half-witch, half-human teenager portrayed by Kiernan Shipka, who played lead character Don Draper’s daughter Sally in the AMC series Mad Men.
