Being that the intersection between Copyright law and Horror is my niche, here are some thoughts on the lawsuit brought by The Satanic Temple against Netflix contending that the show "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" infringed TST's statue of Baphomet bit.ly/2RN7dTA /1
The story got a lot of press, mostly because TST asked for $50,000,000 in damages. Keep in mind that one can put whatever number they want in the complaint. It mostly just means that TST's lawyer has a lot of chutzpah. /2
In terms of the copyright claim, there are good points and bad points. Overall, the two sculptures do look a lot alike. Here are the two statues side by side. As you can see, there are a lot of similarities /3 
However, the TST statue was based on a 19th-century drawing by Eliphas Levi. And the sculptor, Mark Porter, has said that he was trying to duplicate Levi' drawing in his sculpture. /4
If two sculptures are both based on the same drawing, there is certainly going to be similarities, and those similarities would not be protected by copyright. However, where TST has a good case is the addition of the two children, looking reverently at Baphomet. /5
That part is original and can be the basis for a copyright lawsuit. But in terms of the analysis of the infringement, you would only be looking at the part with the two kids and not the statue itself. That would affect the damage calculation /6
Another issue that may come up is TST's ownership of the statue. It says in the complaint that the sculpture was done as a "work-for-hire." But under copyright law, sculptures are not one of the works that can qualify as a work-for-hire. /7
Porter would have either had to be TST's employee (which is doubtful because Porter said it was a commission) or else the agreement between them would need to have language stating that Porter assigned his rights to TST. /8
TST almost certainly messed this up on the copyright application which lists TST as the authors as employers for hire, when it should have put Porter as the author and TST as copyright holders via assignment. I don't think it's fatal, but could be a problem. /9
Besides the copyright claim, TST also alleges that the use of the statue is a trademark infringement which is just crazy. If churches could sue for trademark infringement because their symbols were used in an unflattering way on TV, it would be a major 1st Amendment problem /10
This is ironic because TST created the statue to be a lesson in the 1st Amendment. Claiming that it was defamed by the use of the statue in the show would be like the Catholic Church suing Warner Bros about what Linda Blair does with the crucifix in The Exorcist. /11
How will it end? IMHO, Netflix will use CGI to change the statue on the show and will pay TST a small sum of money (nothing like $50 million). But TST got a lot of press which was always one of their goals /End
