DEMON HUNTER have sued Netflix over the name of an animated film. The Christian metal band, operating through their corporation Hyde Lane, filed a trademark infringement and unfair competition suit on Tuesday, August 18 in the Central District of California, naming Netflix, Netflix Studios and live events promoter AEG Presents as defendants.
The complaint, first reported by Complex, accuses the companies of "jealously guard[ing] and enforc[ing] their own intellectual property rights" while "willfully disregarding the rights of others in pursuit of profits."
The band's argument rests on seniority. "DEMON HUNTER [is] a well-known and celebrated metal band," the filing reads. "DEMON HUNTER was formed at the turn of the century and, in the quarter-century since, it has consistently released albums, toured, and sold merchandise to a large and dedicated audience. Unfortunately, in 2025, Netflix and Netflix Studios — despite almost certainly being aware of DEMON HUNTER — chose to release a movie titled 'KPop Demon Hunters' … [which] reached unprecedented levels of success, not only as a film on Netflix's streaming service, but also via the 'KPop Demon Hunters' movie soundtrack album and merchandise."
What appears to have escalated matters is the move from screens to stages. Netflix has partnered with AEG on a "KPop Demon Hunters" world concert tour due in 2027 with 150 cities mapped out — recorded music, live shows and merchandise, which is precisely the territory a band occupies.
"In short, in just a year's time, Defendants have taken step after step to move into almost complete overlap with the goods and services offered by Hyde Lane under the DEMON HUNTER mark," the suit states, alleging a "substantial likelihood of confusion" and that "actual confusion has already resulted."
The filing is blunt about the asymmetry involved: "By leveraging their superior resources and reach, Defendants can, and do, eclipse Hyde Lane's DEMON HUNTER marks in the marketplace… Defendants' greater size and strength overwhelms Hyde Lane's established identity." The brand built over a quarter of a century, it concludes, "now faces an existential crisis."
DEMON HUNTER are asking the court to bar Netflix from using the name for recorded music, live performance and merchandise, plus unspecified damages.
The band emerged in 2002 and helped lay the groundwork for modern metalcore across a dozen albums, including two No. 1 Independent Albums and six Top 5 Hard Rock Albums. Their twelfth, "There Was A Light Here", arrived last September on their own Weapons MFG label, produced by frontman Ryan Clark and guitarist Jeremiah Scott.
Directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, "KPop Demon Hunters" premiered in late June 2025 and became Netflix's most popular English-language film of all time. Its soundtrack drew five Grammy nominations, and "Golden" won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 98th Academy Awards.
Source: blabbermouth.net