Wyrd Sisters (band)

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The Wyrd Sisters are a Canadian folk music group.

The band formed in 1991 in Winnipeg, Manitoba as a duo consisting of singer-songwriters Kim Baryluk and Nancy Reinhold. Lianne Fournier joined the band in 1993. In 2000, vocalist Kiva also joined the band. In 1999, Fournier left the band to pursue other musical interests. Reinhold left in January 2003, with Kiva departing in 2005. Baryluk is now the sole proprietor of the current band.

In 2005, after being offered CAD$50,000 by Warner Brothers, The Wyrd Sisters undertook a legal action^[1] against Warner Brothers, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, and Jonny Greenwood and Phil Selway of Radiohead, because of a scene in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie adaptation. In J.K. Rowling's novel a band called the "Weird Sisters" plays at a special event in the story. Warner Brothers had considered using the name "The Weird Sisters" in the movie version of that scene. While negotiations to share the name with the Atlanta based band "Three Weird Sisters" were met with enthusiasm, similar negotiations between Warner Brothers and the Canadian band "Wyrd Sisters" quickly broke down, and all plans to use the name in the movie were abandoned^[2]. Despite that decision, the Canadian band filed a CAD$40-million lawsuit against Warner in Ontario court, which included an attempt to block distribution of the film in Canada. The entire suit was dismissed^[3] in November, 2005. Additionally, in June, 2006, the band was ordered to pay Warner Bros. CAD$140,000 in legal costs stemming from the group's lawsuit ^[4].