Something to be aware of!!!!!

By Dannah On Aug 20th, 2008

PUERTO PEÑASCO — The owner of a local collectibles boutique made illegal copies of a Bolivian artist’s oil paintings and sold them as prints on the Internet, according to a recent lawsuit.

The suit involves 20 large oil paintings created by Jose Moreno Aparicio, who splits his time between Bolivia, Mexico, and the Arizona border town of Ajo. The paintings in question show jungle scenes and tropical birds such as parrots and toucans.

In his six-page complaint, Moreno claims Lannette Deann Phillips had copied his works and advertised them for sale on various websites for her business, Rocky Point Collectibles. He also claims that Jim and Sandra O’Hare, owners of Puerto Peñasco’s biggest local newspaper, the Rocky Point Times , collected the money from these sales.

As a result, Moreno is suing all three of them in federal court in Tucson. He is demanding:

• An accounting of all sales and gross profits from the sale of those 20 works,
• Recovery of all indirect and direct profits from those sales,
• Damages worth up to $150,000 per painting,
• A permanent injunction against all future sales,
• The delivery of all DVDs, CD-ROMs, photographs, blueprints, negatives and other materials that contain the copies so that they can be destroyed,
• Money for attorney fees and court costs.

Houston lawyer Dana A. LeJune is representing Moreno.

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