TVSquad

Poor Stuart Frankel. He set-up a website satirizing friendly purple dinosaur Barney, and all he got was grief - grief in the form of intimidating letters from Barney's copyright holders, the Lyons Partnership. Lyons threatened to file a lawsuit if doctored images of said dinosaur were not promptly removed from Frankel's site. Fortunately for satirists everywhere, Frankel fought back. An out-of-court settlement has been reached. Lyons must cease all threats against Frankel and pay him $5,000.00 for his trouble.

The parody in question depicted Barney's off-stage persona -- the evil, punky one (pictured). Under the legal doctrine of fair use, anyone can use copyrighted work in a parody so long as it's for "noncommercial purposes, limited to conjuring up the subject of the satire and does not replace the market for the original." So, go to town, people. Mock away. Kick a dinosaur while he's down. Think Barney parodies have been done to death? There's a world of saccharine children's programming just waiting for your comedic intervention.