By Tim Binnall
A high school art teacher in Canada is being sued for a staggering $1.5 million for allegedly selling his students' work online. The eyebrow-raising case reportedly began back in January in the community of Saint-Lazare when Mario Perron instructed his class at Westwood Junior High School to produce a 'Creepy Portrait' in a manner reminiscent of the famed artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. According to the lawsuit, it would appear that the art teacher was rather impressed when the assignments were turned in a few weeks later as, unbeknownst to the students, he promptly began selling them on his personal website.
Amazingly, not only could visitors purchase prints of the various 'Creepy Portraits' created by the students, the lawsuit notes, but Perron's online storefront also offered all manner of merchandise, from mugs to cell phone cases, featuring the artwork. However, the teacher's ill-advised side hustle came to a screeching halt when students inadvertently discovered the scheme. Their parents subsequently brought their concerns regarding Perron's brazen business endeavor to the local school board, which promised to investigate the situation, though there was no response to calls for the students to be compensated for whatever had been sold to date.
As such, a group of parents filed a lawsuit against Perron and the school board wherein they demanded a whopping $1.5 million in damages for the alleged intellectual property theft. Their lawyers explained that the sizeable sum was determined by valuing each piece of pilfered artwork at $5,000 and then multiplying that by the number of items, 31, that were being sold featuring the designs. While it is uncertain if the group will wind up receiving the full amount should they win the lawsuit, at the very least the school board and Perron appear poised to be taught a costly lesson in copyright infringement.