Everyone’s loving Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Well, everyone except The Satanic Temple.
The Salem-based institution is suing the streaming giant and Warner Bros. for up to $150 million over its copyrighted design of the goat-headed deity, Baphomet.
In the series, the statue resides in The Academy of Unseen Arts, where Sabrina attends, and has connections to Satan. That’s not how the statue is intended to be portrayed, though, as the Temple argues in court documents obtained by The Blast: “Among other morally repugnant actions, the Sabrina Series’ evil antagonists engage in cannibalism and forced-worship of a patriarchal deity.”
“It’s deeply problematic to us,” Lucien Greaves, co-founder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, told SFGATE. “[But] even if that wasn’t the case we’d be obligated to make a copyright claim because that’s how copyright works.”
The Temple’s statue, which was unveiled in Detroit in 2015, was originally modeled after a 19th-century illustration of the deity with specific qualities that are featured in the reproduction used in the supernatural series. As such, the Temple is suing for copyright infringement, trademark violation, and injury to business reputation, which each carrying a hellish price tag of $50 million.
“It’s distressing on the grounds that you have to worry about that association being made where people will see your monument and not know which preceded the other,” Greaves further explained. “And thinking that you arbitrarily decided to go with the Sabrina design for your Baphomet monument, which rather cheapens our central icon.”
In a sense, it’s kind of a win-win for the Temple. If all goes according to plan, they can walk away with some money, while also getting some free publicity, especially for those who might be interested in seeking out the statue.
Nevertheless, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is currently streaming on Netflix.