Damien Hirst has either taught a young, sixteen year old artist a valuable lesson or he has unintentionally made the guy an instant success, known forever as “the artist who got Hirst mad over $200.” The David in this vs. Goliath story is a young man who calls himself Cartrain, who repeatedly used images of Hirst’s multi-million dollar crystal skull piece in his own work, including a collage he was selling online for around seventy dollars. Hirst found out, called his lawyers, and the whole thing was shut down, with Hirst even receiving the kid’s original, intellectual property-defying art. While some see it as purely an artist protecting his ideas, others, like the Telegraph‘s Victoria Holman, believe that “‘appropriation’ is not theft” and that this is an indication that Hirst has lost his sense of humor completely:

Hirst is one of the art world’s biggest jokers and appropriators. But a sense of humour is really tested when on the receiving end of a joke, rather than when extracting the proverbial urine.

His spin paintings were inspired by Blue Peter, while the Hirst artwork being ‘appropriated’ was influenced by another artist, John LeKay!