EFF Accepts Barney's Surrender

Purple Dinosaur Backs Off and Pays Up; Free Speech Rights
Preserved

San Francisco - The corporate owners of the popular
children's television character Barney the Purple Dinosaur
have agreed to withdraw their baseless legal threats
against a website publisher who parodied the character and
to compensate him for fees expended in defending himself.

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."

This settlement is the latest development in EFF's ongoing
campaign to protect online free speech from the chilling
effects of bogus copyright claims. Earlier this month, EFF
filed suit against Michael Crook -- a man who claimed
copyright infringement in an effort to censor his online
critics.

"Those who misuse copyright should know that they can be
sued for doing so," said McSherry. "This settlement should
send a message to those who want to use copyright law as a
pretext for censorship."

EFF was assisted in this case by Elizabeth Rader, James
d'Auguste, and Brian Carney, attorneys with the firm of
Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP, which is defending
Dr. Frankel's free speech rights on a pro bono basis.

For the original complaint:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/barney/frankel_v_lyons_complaint.pdf