Demon Hunter, the metal band that has recorded under that name since the turn of the century, has sued Netflix and AEG Presents over the title of the streaming service’s animated film KPop Demon Hunters.
The band’s corporation, Hyde Lane, Inc., filed the complaint on Tuesday (August 18) in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
Hyde Lane is asking the court for treble damages, restitution, Netflix‘s profits, and attorneys’ fees, and has demanded a jury trial.
The filing, which you can read here, puts no number on the harm, saying that Hyde Lane has “been damaged in an amount not yet ascertainable.”
The complaint names Netflix, Inc., Netflix Studios, and AEG Presents as defendants, and alleges trademark infringement, false designation of origin, and unfair competition.
Sony Pictures Animation, which produced the film, is not a defendant.
The Hyde Lane complaint states its case by analogy:
“Simply put, Netflix is no more entitled to use the mark KPOP DEMON HUNTERS than it would be to launch a recording artist, live touring show, and merchandise under the marks KPOP METALLICA, KPOP U2 or KPOP BLACK SABBATH.”
“Simply put, Netflix is no more entitled to use the mark KPOP DEMON HUNTERS than it would be to launch a recording artist, live touring show, and merchandise under the marks KPOP METALLICA, KPOP U2 or KPOP BLACK SABBATH.”
Hyde Lane’s Complaint
“KPOP DEMON HUNTERS subsumes the entire DEMON HUNTER mark,” the Hyde Lane filing adds.
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,” according to the complaint.
It alleges that in 2025 Netflix and Netflix Studios – “despite almost certainly being aware of Demon Hunter” – released a film that “reached unprecedented levels of success” on streaming and via its soundtrack album and merchandise.
The trigger for the action is live music: in May, Netflix and AEG Presents announced a global concert tour based on the film.
The complaint says the tour will reach 150 cities.
“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 filing says.
The complaint accuses Netflix and AEG Presents of being “massive companies that jealously guard and enforce their own intellectual property rights willfully disregarding the rights of others in pursuit of profits.”
It adds: “As a result of their adoption and exploitation of the ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ brand, which is confusingly similar to senior user Hyde Lane‘s established Demon Hunter mark, junior users Netflix, Netflix Studios, and AEG have created a substantial likelihood of confusion (and, indeed, actual confusion has already resulted), leading consumers to believe the parties’ goods or services are affiliated, sponsored, or otherwise connected with one another.”
As evidence, the filing cites a parent who bought tickets to a Demon Hunter show in the belief it was a KPop Demon Hunters event.
The parent spent almost $500 on top-tier seats for a concert in Albany, New York, for themselves and their five- and six-year-old daughters.
“I was way to [sic] excited and didn’t pay attention,” the parent wrote, in an email the Hyde Lane complaint reproduces as written.
“I spent almost $500 on the tickets because I wanted my girls to have a great view their very first concert and I really messed up.”
The Hyde Lane filing also quotes the parent as writing: “If I dont get it refunded I will not be able to purchase tickets to the actual ‘K pop demon hunters show’.”
The complaint further states that searches for Demon Hunter on Ticketmaster return KPop Demon Hunters events.
Hyde Lane argues that the confusion runs in both directions and pleads reverse confusion.
“Even more devastatingly, by leveraging their superior resources and reach, Defendants can, and do, eclipse Hyde Lane‘s Demon Hunter marks in the marketplace and effectively misappropriate the marks’ source-identifying significance,” the complaint says.
“Thus, Defendants’ greater size and strength overwhelms Hyde Lane‘s established identity, causing consumers to perceive Hyde Lane as affiliated with, sponsored by, or derived from Defendants and denuding Hyde Lane of power over its commercial fate.”
KPop Demon Hunters arrived on Netflix in June 2025 and became the platform’s most-watched movie of all time, drawing 325.1 million views in its first 91 days and $24.7 million from a limited theatrical run.
Across Netflix‘s What We Watched reports, the film’s total has reached 648.7 million views.
The complaint acknowledges Netflix‘s claim that the film’s songs have been streamed more than 10 billion times.
The film won two Golden Globes, and at the 2026 Oscars took Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for Golden, the first K-pop song to win in that category.
Golden also won Best Song Written for Visual Media at the Grammys, another first for a K-pop track.
In August 2025, the song made fictional girl group HUNTR/X the first K-pop girl group to top the Billboard Hot 100.
The soundtrack, released via Visva/Republic Records, was the highest-charting soundtrack of 2025, and The Black Label, the Korean studio whose producers worked on it, raised $80 million in May at a valuation of around $660 million.
The complaint puts Demon Hunter at more than 363,000 followers and 348,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, with its seven most popular songs passing 100 million plays between them.
Hyde Lane says it has used the Demon Hunter name continuously since at least 2001 across recordings, song licensing, print products, and clothing, with registrations dating back to 2014.
Three Demon Hunter marks were registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office in 2022.
Separately, the filing states that a registration for the name was canceled in February 2025 “due to an inadvertent failure to timely file the requisite Section 8 and 9 Declaration,” and says Hyde Lane refiled in December 2025.
Hyde Lane alleges that Netflix is seeking to “usurp” its mark by applying to register KPop Demon Hunters for live entertainment services.
Alongside damages, Hyde Lane is asking the court to bar use of the name and to order the US Marshal to seize and impound infringing goods.
“The brand that Hyde Lane has carefully built over the course of the past quarter century now faces an existential crisis, thereby necessitating the filing of this action and the granting of the requested relief from this Court,” the complaint states.
MBW has reached out to Netflix and AEG Presents for comment.Music Business Worldwide
