Netflix sued by real 'Demon Hunter' metal band over 'substantial confusion' with KPop Demon Hunters

Turns out there's room for only one Demon Hunter in this town, and a 25-year-old Christian metal outfit from Seattle isn't ready to hand over the crown to a cartoon.

The band Demon Hunter, through their company Hyde Lane, filed suit against Netflix this week, arguing that the streamer's smash-hit animated film KPop Demon Hunters, plus its merch empire and upcoming world tour cuts a little too close to their own decades-built brand.

According to the BBC, their case doesn't stop at name recognition either: the filing points to a mixed-up fan who reportedly dropped $500 on what they believed were kid-friendly KPop Demon Hunters concert tickets, only to end up in line for actual headbanging. Add in a bewildered TV producer who apparently reached out to the band thinking they had something to do with the film, and a stream of social posts mistagging the band in movie chatter, and the lawsuit argues the confusion is more than coincidental.

The numbers, admittedly, tell a David-and-Goliath story. Demon Hunter's Spotify audience sits around 350,000 monthly listeners; the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack cast, meanwhile, commands a staggering 27 million. But the band is chasing a trademark they registered back in 2022 for music and merchandise, with a live-performance application still in the pipeline. Netflix, for its part, holds trademark registrations of its own on the KPop Demon Hunters name for various merchandise categories, with more applications reportedly on the way.

For Netflix, the film has been nothing short of a phenomenon: its most-watched original release ever, an Oscar and Golden Globe winner for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (Golden), and now the anchor of an expanding universe that includes a confirmed sequel and rumored TV and stage-musical spin-offs.

A global concert tour is slated to kick off in 2027, which is precisely the collision course Hyde Lane says threatens to overshadow the band's own live legacy.

The band's ask: a court order barring Netflix from using the KPop Demon Hunters name in music, live shows, and merchandise, plus damages to be determined. Whether the courts see this as a genuine identity crisis or just an unfortunate case of two demon-hunting brands crossing streams remains to be seen, but for now, it's animated pop stars versus real-life metalheads, and nobody's backing down without a fight.