The Satanic Temple’s $50 million lawsuit against Netflix and Warner Bros. TV over a “misappropriated” use of the statue of Baphomet that appeared in “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” has been “amicably settled,” a representative for the studio told TheWrap on Wednesday.
Warner Bros. — which is handling all correspondence on the lawsuit that was filed earlier this month, for both itself and Netflix — did not have any additional comment on the matter, which the company said is a “confidential settlement.” Warner Bros. did not disclose whether a monetary settlement was reached with the Satanic Temple, a nontheistic religious and political activist group based in Salem, Massachusetts. Netflix declined TheWrap’s request for comment.
“The Satanic Temple is pleased to announce that the lawsuit it recently filed against Warner Bros. and Netflix has been amicably settled,” TST co-founder Lucien Greaves said in a statement to TheWrap. “The unique elements of the Satanic Temple’s Baphomet statue have been acknowledged in the credits of episodes which have already been filmed. The remaining terms of the settlement are subject to a confidentiality agreement.”
“I have gotten quite a bit of hate mail from people seemingly basic enough to conceive of the situation as one in which a large powerful Satanic organization is using its might to bully an uncertain and innocent teenage witch who has just been newly exposed to the wide, cruel world,” Greaves continued. “One email implored me to not ‘ruin’ a show that ‘just tries to bring joy into the world.’”
“When I read these things, I can’t help but wonder when the last time was that any of these angry commenters wrote to a public representative or approached any issue of importance in any way. Ironically, however, many of [sic] messages put the blame of misallocated outrage upon us, some of them saying they liked us better when we focused on Church/State issues. More than a few people seem to think that because this story gained so much media attention that we, too, have been disproportionately focused on this issue.”
Greaves declined to comment to TheWrap on whether or not a monetary settlement was reached.
Read Greaves’ statement in full below and further details about the lawsuit here.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this story.
The Satanic Temple is pleased to announce that the lawsuit it recently filed against Warner Bros. and Netflix has been amicably settled. The unique elements of the Satanic Temple’s Baphomet statue have been acknowledged in the credits of episodes which have already been filmed. The remaining terms of the settlement are subject to a confidentiality agreement.
Many people immediately supported our copyright claim and felt they recognized it to have clear merit. Surprisingly, to me, however, there were also a large number of people who flooded us with hate mail and armchair legal analysis.
I have gotten quite a bit of hate mail from people seemingly basic enough to conceive of the situation as one in which a large powerful Satanic organization is using its might to bully an uncertain and innocent teenage witch who has just been newly exposed to the wide, cruel world. One email implored me to not “ruin” a show that “just tries to bring joy into the world.”
When I read these things, I can’t help but wonder when the last time was that any of these angry commenters wrote to a public representative or approached any issue of importance in any way. Ironically, however, many of messages put the blame of misallocated outrage upon us, some of them saying they liked us better when we focused on Church/State issues. More than a few people seem to think that because this story gained so much media attention that we, too, have been disproportionately focused on this issue.
The truth is, it is a poor commentary upon our entire culture, in my eyes, that media overwhelmed this copyright claim, relative to which the coverage of our rally in Arkansas, which confronted still unresolved questions about the continued American dedication to Liberal Democracy, received sparse reporting for a day.
I particularly loved the confused claim from the people who said we were “playing victim,” with the alternative being that we simply stand silent when we feel our work may have been exploited. Interesting, too, are the almost equal numbers of those who say we’re being “just like Christians” (though how is never made clear), opposed to those who protest that our move here is incomprehensible because “you never see another religion making this kind of claim.”
All I can say about the case now is what was italicized above:
The Satanic Temple is pleased to announce that the lawsuit it recently filed against Warner Bros. and Netflix has been amicably settled. The unique elements of the Satanic Temple’s Baphomet with Children statue have been acknowledged in the credits of episodes which have already been filmed. The remaining terms of the settlement are subject to a confidentiality agreement,
So ends one of the most overpublicized of copyright claims. Press can now stop pretending this was unique and momentous, or even interesting. So, too, hopefully ends the parade of stupidity from online amateur legal experts.