The Satanic Temple Settles Lawsuit against Netflix and Warner Bros. for Using Goat-Headed Statue
On Wednesday, Warner Bros. and Netflix settled a lawsuit brought against them by The Satanic Temple for using the temple’s statue of Baphomet in the spin-off of the 90s classic “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”
The temple’s co-founder Lucien Greaves wrote in a blog post that the suit was “amicably settled” between the parties.
Greaves continued noting that The Satanic Temple will be acknowledged for the goat-headed statue in the credits for the remaining episodes of “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” He also noted that the remainder of the agreement is protected by a confidentiality agreement.
The New York Times reports that The Satanic Temple filed suit against Netflix and Warner Bros. on Nov. 9 in the Federal District Court in Manhattan. Reportedly the group asked for at a minimum of $50 million for copyright infringement and defamation to the temple’s reputation.
According to the temple’s mission statement, the group, which defines itself as an activist group, works in part to “reject tyrannical authority” and to “encourage benevolence and empathy among all people.”
The New York Times reports that the goat-headed statue called “Baphomet With Children,” was designed five years ago to be used for protests on religious freedom. The statue was based on a drawing of the deity made by occultist Éliphas Lévi in 1856. The statue shows two little children staring up at deity worshiping him.
In 2015, after a Ten Commandments monument was erected at the Oklahoma Capitol, the temple tried to get the Baphomet statue installed in response. Eventually, the State Supreme Court had the Ten Commandments removed. Earlier this year, the temple attempted the same thing when the Arkansas Capitol had the Ten Commandments display there.
According to the lawsuit, a statue that looks nearly identical to “Baphomet With Children” appeared in several episodes of “Sabrina” and was used to represent the evil Dark Lord who fights the teenage witch.
The Satanic Temple claimed that the studios infringed on their copyright on the statue and damaged the Temple’s reputation by portraying the statue as evil.
Photo courtesy: Creative Commons/Pixabay
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