The Theft of the Creepy Portraits: The Case of a Teacher Exploiting his Students

In February of 2024, a junior high art teacher, Mario Perron, at a school in Canada was accused of using his personal website to sell the artwork of student’s without their permission or even their knowledge. Perron assigned his students a project in which they were required to create a portrait of themself or a classmate in the style of the famous artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat. He referred to this assignment as “Creepy Portraits.” Students and parents were shocked to discover that the artwork has been copied onto items such as mugs, t-shirts, bags, and more. Some of these items were listed as high as $174. There were 2,976 items for sale, each one titled with the student’s first name and followed by “Creepy Portrait,” but Perron was listed as the artist for every item.

By copying and selling his student’s artwork, Perron was infringing on copyright law, specifically by theft of the students’ intellectual property. In Canada, the law states that when an artwork is created, copyright law is applied automatically without any registration. This means that all of the students’ work was protected by copyright law as soon as it was created. Since the teacher was using and profiting from his student’s work without their knowledge or permission, he was committing copyright infringement. Additionally, as a teacher, Perron had a fiduciary duty. This means that he has a legal obligation to act in the best interest of his students. Clearly, stealing and selling their work was not in their best interest.

Parents of these students filed a lawsuit against Perron. They had several demands included in this lawsuit. First of all, they were seeking 2.16 million Canadian dollars. This is equivalent to about $1.59 million. They decided to seek this amount because it included punitive damages, legal fees, and 5,000 Canadian dollars for each work produced. In addition to the money they were seeking, they demanded that Perron remove all of the items from the website. They also demanded that Perron be suspended from his position and provide a written apology to the students.

This is a very interesting case because of how it affected the students in Perron’s art class. Teachers are supposed to be adults that you can trust. They have an ethical responsibility over their students. By exploiting their artwork, Perron betrayed his student’s trust and was negligent of his responsibility toward the students. Perron was in a position of authority over these students, however, he took advantage of that power dynamic by exploiting the artwork of the children. Not only did these actions make the students lose all trust in their current art teacher, they could also be effected more long term. One parents gave a statement about his daughter and how she wass affected by the situation. The parent told CBS News “My daughter loves art, always has been into art, and this year after everything happened, she said to me, ‘I don’t think I’ll do art next year.’” The scandal affected this student’s current state, but it also has major imprilcation on her asspirations to become an artist.

Not only was the teacher guilty legally, he was also at fault for ethical and moral reasons as a teacher. This case prompts many questions. Do art teachers have an ethical obligation to protect their student’s work? Does a teacher’s fiduciary duty include protecting their student’s intellectual property? Should all art, even art created by students, be treated the same under copyright law? Should schools and teachers have stricter guidelines regarding the creations of their students?
The answer to all of these questions is yes. Morally and ethically teachers should be responsible for protecting their students to the best of their ability. This includes protecting the things their students create. Teachers are supposed to be a trusted adult for students to have away from home. Perron should have been fulfilling his fiduciary duty, but exploiting his students was definitely not acting in their best interest. By breaking his students’ trust, Perron was also causing his students to lose trust in teachers in general. This could have lasting effect on these students and how they feel toward people in authoritative positions. Additionally, just beecuase art is created in a school setting does not mean that the artist should be giving up their ownership over it. The art was created by the students so what was done with it should have been up to their discretion.