EFF Sues Barney the Dinosaur

August 30, 2006 D. H. McKee

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked a federal court Wednesday to protect the free speech rights of a website publisher who has suffered years of baseless legal threats over his parody of the Barney and Friends television show.
Since 2002, the Lyons Partnership has repeatedly sent meritless cease-and-desist letters to Stuart Frankel because his website pokes fun at Barney the purple dinosaur, the well-known children’s television character. Dr. Frankel, assisted by EFF, responded to these letters in 2002 and 2005, but Barney’s lawyers have continued to harass him. The lawsuit filed by Dr. Frankel asks the court to finally resolve the matter by declaring that his parody does not infringe Barney’s copyright or trademark rights.
“Barney’s lawyers are sending out intimidating lawyer letters to parody websites that are clearly protected by the First Amendment and fair use,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “It’s time for Barney to call off his lawyer armies and get back to entertaining children.”
EFF: Breaking News

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As a guy who occasionally curates art shows and wrangles artists together, I often have to edit and post artist bios, profile pictures, and artwork images. This can be a problem, since many artists and writers aren’t used to selling themselves. Artists rarely know how to present their art for display in a brochure, and writers aren’t used to writing about themselves.

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Like blogs of old, this one is a personal document of the comings and goings of me. Articles I’ve written, links I’ve posted, videos I liked, etc. Here, a first-person perspective is the way to go, at least for now. So, this is my site. I’m D. H. McKee, a sometimes artist, sometimes writer. Mostly just a guy on the internet.