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I like you…you like me…so why, oh why, are you suing me?

Ok, so Lyons Partnership LP is the production company behind “Barney and Friends,” the kiddy show featuring that awful purple dinosaur. You know him, you hate him - that stupid sumbitch right over there.

Well, it seems that Lyons doesn’t quite have a real sense of humor about its pet, viciously trying to exert its copyrights and trademarks in places it has no right doing so, threatening litigation left and right. Well the Electronic Frontier Foundation has had all it can stand and it can’t stands no more, and the EFF is suing Lyons Partnership.

Underlying this lawsuit is a campaign Lyons Partnership took up against Stuart Frankel, the creator of a parody website envisioning Barney and Satan as being one in the same. Because he understands the basic copyright notion that parody is an excepted fair use, Frankel rightfully ignored repeated letters from Lyons Partnership demanding that images of the Purple One be taken down. And now the EFF has stepped up to the plate to take the battle to Lyons Partnership because of its “prehistoric understanding” of IP laws.

So good on, EFF. But you guys should be careful - Barney may seem like a gentle and effeminate critter, but at the first scent of blood, he’ll gnaw your limbs off quicker than a fat mid-Westerner wolfing down the $9.99 all-you-can-eat steak and lobster at the questionable Barbary Coast on the Las Vegas strip.

Posted by Seth on August 28, 2006 | Comments (1)