'Wyrd' group still battling over fictional 'Potter' band's name

  March 3, 2008 at 2:59 PM ET
  Cheeser     HPANA (via Canadian Press)
  wyrd sisters, weird sisters

Winnipeg, Canada folk music group Wyrd Sisters are continuing their two-year-old battle with Warner Bros. over the similarly named (but alternately spelled) band in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, even though the group failed to halt the 2005 film's release and Warner Bros. removed all mention of it from the movie.

The folk group -- which attempted to trademark "Wyrd Sisters" in 2005 (its status remains "opposed") -- is now demanding that all remaining DVDs, video games and other merchandise that reference The Weird Sisters be destroyed. Kim Baryluk, the group's founder, said that included the film's soundtrack, the Harry Potter Scene-It DVD game, and trading cards.

"Consumers will assume that the smaller and less famous Canadian band is trying to take advantage of the Harry Potter fame by copying the Harry Potter band's name when in fact the reverse is true," Baryluk said in her statement of claim to the Federal Court of Canada in Toronto.

An Ontario Supreme Court judge previously ordered Baryluk to pay $140,000 in court costs to Warner Bros. for the failed attempt to block Goblet of Fire from being released to theaters in 2005. That payment has not been made.