Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe NEW YORK, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Don't mess with Barney, the favorite purple dinosaur of U.S. children -- you might get sued. A Web site, dustyfeet.com, featured a parody by Stuart Frankel, a New York City musicologist, in which Barney was depicted with horns, sharp teeth and "666," the mark of the beast, on his chest. Advertisement A link on the parody site invited people to enroll in the "Jihad to Destroy Barney." All of which didn't sit well with Barney's owner, the Lyons Partnership, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. A Lyons lawyer sent Frankel a string of cease-and-desist letters. In 1998, the company filed 77 suits in 20 states to protect Barney's copyrighted image. But in the new dispute, Frankel asked for help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco digital rights group, which struck first and filed suit in New York against Lyons for alleged harassment. Lyons now has promised not to sue Frankel if the suit is dropped, the Journal-Constitution said. "This isn't about Barney. It's about standing up to bullies," Frankel told the newspaper.
