Advocacy Group Sues Barney the Dinosaur

Warning: If you have children present, you may wish to excuse them before reading further.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing children's TV icon Barney the purple dinosaur. It claims that the Lyons Partnership, the company that owns the Barney trademark, is violating the free speech rights of Stuart Frankel, publisher of a Barney parody site.

Since 2002, Barney's lawyers have sent Frankel a series of cease-and-desist letters to shut down his site. The lawsuit, according to EFF, "asks the court to finally resolve the matter by declaring that his parody does not infringe Barney's copyright or trademark rights." CNET's Declan McCullagh reported in October that the cease-and-desist letters complained that Frankel's site "depicts a plush Barney toy in a violent manner or position" and asked that he "remove this violent content toward Barney on your Web site."

Read all about the case and view litigation documents at the EFF's Barney page. But be sure your kids are away.

Details here from Robert J. Ambrogi via the Law.com Blog Network.