EFF accepts Barney's surrender

Cory Doctorow 9:39 am Tue Nov 28, 2006

EFF has won a settlement out of the corporate owners of Barney the Purple Dinosaur — a pack of legal bullies who use copyright law to threaten people who make fun of their character on the Internet:

The agreement settles a suit filed by the Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF) in August on behalf of Dr. Stuart
Frankel against Lyons Partnership, owners of the Barney
character. Frankel received repeated, meritless
cease-and-desist letters from Lyons, claiming his online
parody violated copyright and trademark law. EFF's suit
asked the court to declare that Frankel's parody was a
noninfringing fair use protected by the First Amendment.

"We wish we hadn't had to file a lawsuit to finally get
Barney's lawyers to stop harassing a man who was just
expressing his opinion about a cultural phenomenon," said
EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "Hopefully Lyons
Partnership has learned its lesson and will have more
respect for fair use in the future."

Link

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