The EFF Wins One

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation, who is suing to stop the US efforts to fight terrorism by listening in on phone calls of terrorists, managed to finally win a big court case. Against Barney the Dinosaur.

In this case, the lawyers for the big purple doofus kept sending cease and desist letters to a Dr. Frankel, (pictured below) who was operating a single webpage that poked fun at Barney and the brain-rotting pablum that the children’s TV show produces.

In these cease and desist letters, the lawyers were wrongfully asserting that Frankel was not allowed to use Barney’s image on the website without express permission of the law firm. But as a parody or as valid criticism, the images were fair use.

The Register has the write up on it here. Hilariously, they note that “being conquered by the EFF is much like being bitten to death by a duck.”

The EFF has successfully defended the owner of a web site ridiculing Barney the Dinosaur. Shysters representing the simpering mascot had demanded that webmaster Stuart Frankel cease and desist in giving the purple menace the negative publicity he so richly deserves.

Lyons Partnership, Barney’s corporate masters, claimed that Frankel was violating their copyrights by mocking their profitable creation on line. But then the mighty EFF marshaled its legal beagles, and for once, they were able to prove fair use. Frankel is free to disparage the reprehensible reptile using his own likeness, slogans, and desultory ejaculations.

I’m especially gratified to see Barney go down for the count, even if, metaphorically speaking, being conquered by the EFF is much like being bitten to death by a duck. I believe he’s neurotoxic. I forbid my young son to watch the show, fearing that it will make him dull witted, or gay.

I used to receive cease and desist letters for my Muppets page here from lawyers for Jim Henson because they did not like that I used their muppet likenesses in a sexual and partisan matter. I have been ignoring those letters for years, as should anyone that publishes works that are critiques or parodies.