The Satanic Temple on Thursday, sued Netflix and Warner Bros Entertainment for $50 million for their alleged unauthorised use of a statue of the goat-headed deity Baphomet in the series "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina."
According to court documents filed in a New York district court, the Satanic Temple accused Netflix and Warner Bros of copyrights infringement, trademark violation, and as well injury to its business reputation.
The complaint accused Netflix, the distributor of Sabrina, and Warner Bros which produces it, misappropriated the Salem, Massachusetts-based plaintiffs Baphomet with children in ways implying that it stands for evil.
The lawsuit claims the show's statue was similar to the real-life sized goat-headed deity Baphomet monument that was famously made by an Indiegogo campaign in 2014. Though the statue was intended to be installed next to the Ten Commandments at the Oklahoma State Capitol. However, due to protests, the statue now resides in Detroit.
According to the Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves, the statue ever since has become a symbol that represents them (the Satanists) as a people.
However, the Satanic Temple claims that due to the statue's prominent feature in the show, its members are being associated with the evil antagonists depicted in the show. The characters in the show who worship the 'Dark Lord', engage in murder, torture, cannibalism, and other nefarious activities.
"It does really kind of normalize this notion that only true meaning of this type of religious identification is one that can be associated with a patriarchal, cannibalistic cult," Greaves said. "We're so inundated with this anti-Satan fiction that a lot of people think its superfluous to pursue to a claim like this at all."
The Satanic Temple, whose formal name is United Federation of Churches LLC, hails Satan as a "rebel against God's authority, rather than being an evil being."
According to the religious group, they do not promote evil but instead holds to the basic principle that undue suffering is bad, and that which reduces suffering is good.
The group claimed that they had reached out to Netflix and Warner Bros to remove the depiction when they become aware of the statue in the series, but their request fell on deaf ears.