Sabrina Spellman spent the better part of the first season of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” in trouble with the fictional Dark Lord — and now she’s getting heat from the real-life Satanic Temple.
Netflix’s TV adaptation of the Archie Comics character has caught the eye of the Temple’s co-founder, Lucien Greaves, for “appropriating” his organization’s copyrighted design of the monument to Baphomet. He is now threatening to take “legal action” against the streamer.
The statue is shown in multiple scenes while the teen witch (played by Kiernan Shipka) attends the Academy of Unseen Arts, a magical school that teaches the way of the Dark Lord aka the show’s version of Satan.
You can see a shot of the monument — placed inside the fictional academy — below:
“Yes, we are taking legal action regarding #TheChillingAdventuresofSabrina appropriating our copyrighted monument design to promote their asinine Satanic Panic fiction,” Greaves tweeted Sunday.
Greaves said in a statement to TheWrap on Tuesday that “we’ve sent [Netflix] a letter from our lawyers informing them of the copyright violation, asking them to take our imagery out of their show.”
In an interview with SFGate published on Monday, Greaves said, “It’s deeply problematic to us. [But] even if that wasn’t the case we’d be obligated to make a copyright claim because that’s how copyright works.”
Greaves told SFGate he thinks “Sabrina” depicts its image of Baphomet as “evil,” which could have a negative effect on his group.
“I feel that the use of our particular image that is recognized as our own central icon [being] displayed fictionally as central to some cannibalistic cult has real world damaging effects for us,” he said.
“I want them to take it out,” he added. “It looks like it’s a CGI facsimile to begin with. I don’t know how much work that takes, but I simply refuse to have our monument used in this way in perpetuity. I don’t want our monument to be associated with this.”
Netflix did not immediately respond to TheWrap‘s request for comment.
See Greaves’ tweets about the matter below.
Yes, we are taking legal action regarding #TheChillingAdventuresofSabrina appropriating our copyrighted monument design to promote their asinine Satanic Panic fiction.
— Lucien Greaves (@LucienGreaves) October 29, 2018
I'm not sure why this was tweeted at me, but the writer/director for Sabrina apparently feels that the "struggle for justice" allows for their show to appropriate our intellectual property. https://t.co/4wNmdjlAaX
— Lucien Greaves (@LucienGreaves) October 29, 2018
I'm amazed that anybody is confused as to why we would seek legal remedy over Sabrina using our monument. Would they be as understanding of a fictional show that used a real mosque as the HQ of a terrorist cell? A fictional Blood Libel tale implicating real world Jews?
— Lucien Greaves (@LucienGreaves) October 29, 2018
“Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” Season 1 is available for streaming on Netflix.