Rocker Manson sues ex-bandmate's label over album artwork.

Gothic rocker Marilyn Manson is suing a former band member's record label for alleged copyright infringement after artwork in a book co-authored by Manson was used to promote 11-year-old recordings released on CD and companion DVDs.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeks at least $500,000 in damages plus unspecified profits from the album and attorneys' fees, as well as an injunction preventing the sale of "Lunch Boxes & Choklit Cows," which was released April 20.

Manson, whose birth name is Brian Warner, claims in the suit that he owns the copyrights to the drawings and wants all CD sleeves and promotional materials bearing those images returned or destroyed.

"It's not the music on the CD that's the problem," said Allen Grodsky, a partner with Grodsky & Olecld LLP, the Santa Monica law firm representing Manson. "We're upset about the packaging, advertising, the DVD that is inserted. They can't sell that anymore and must pull it out of the stores."

The suit is the latest swipe in a legal feud that began in 1996 when Manson kicked former bandmate Scott Putesky out of the band they co-founded, Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids.

As part of an October 1998 settlement reached with Putesky, Manson waved all royalty rights to 21 early songs he sang (10 of which are on the new CD), said Richard Wolfe, a partner in Miami-based Wolfe & Goldstein, the firm representing Empire Musicwerks Inc., the label for Putesky's current band, the Spooky Kids.

Putesky, who goes by the stage name of Daisy Berkowitz, and was initially named in the new suit along with Empire, a division of Hallandale, Fla.-based Hot JWP Music Inc. But his name was dropped last week.

Manson's current bandmate, Madonna Wayne Gacy, whose birth name is Stephen Bier, is also a plaintiff in the suit, which alleges the pair's privacy was invaded.

Lawyers for both sides acknowledge that the CD sleeve, insert and promotional materials were taken from Manson's 1998 book, "The Long Hard Road Out of Hell," co-written by Neil Strauss.

Putesky and Manson drew the cartoons together back in the early 1990s, according to Wolfe.

Lawyers for both sides are scheduled to appear June 7 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to argue Manson and Gacy's request for a preliminary injunction.

Wolfe added that Empire and Putesky would gladly remove the cartoons from future CD packaging and promotional materials to settle the matter, but the request for an injunction will be fought.