From two recent stories: one from The Independent in the UK and one from Artinfo.com.

It seems that Damien Hirst is demanding recompense from a teenage artist who used images of Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull titled For the Love of God in collage paintings he sells on his website.

Below is from The Independent:

16-year-old’s stencil designs fall foul of multi-millionaire artist
One is an entrepreneurial 16-year-old who takes time off from his schoolwork to create urban stencil designs of cultural icons such as Mickey Mouse and Clint Eastwood, which he sells for £65 on the internet. The other is the Turner prize-winning father of Britart whose diamond-encrusted skull and pickled sharks have brought him a £200m fortune. Ordinarily, the two figures at opposite ends of the art spectrum should never have cause to meet. But Cartain, the moniker for the teenage artist, has earned the ire of Damien Hirst for incorporating photographic images of his platinum cast of a human skull, For the Love of God, into his graffiti prints. The two artists have become locked in an unlikely art clash that has led Hirst to demand recompense from the teenager for selling £200 worth of images of his skull without permission, says Private Eye magazine.

This would all make for interesting news if it weren’t so hypocritical. Damien Hirst has appropriated work from many artists and settled claims out of court according to the BBC. Most prominently, an article from The Times in which artist John LeKay, a former friend of Hirst, says the diamond skull is a copy of work he’s been doing since 1993. LeKay uses less expensive crystals in his piece, which he has been quoted as saying “looks as if it is covered in diamonds.”

In 2003, Hirst was accused of copying two different artists, again featured in an article from The Times.

Seems to me it’s the pot calling the kettle black in the case of Hirst and the teen artist Cartain. Of course the benefit is now everyone knows this 16-year-old artists name.