Damien Hirst Where Art and Medicine Meet Great Failures in Architectural History Also This Month Anish Kapoor Among the World’s Weathiest Artists Ersatz Emins? ICA Administrators Plan £1 Million in Cuts Throwing Hirst and Emin in the Trash

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

According to the Independent, the creators of the Web site Red Rag to a Bull, who include Jimmy Cauty, a former member of the band The KLF; Jamie Reid, the designer of the cover for the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen single; and artist Billy Childish, have produced a series of limited-edition prints that mock Hirst's copyright claims to the diamond skull.

"Unlike Cartrain and his gallery, we are not intimidated by lawyers, and if an injunction is issued, we will simply ignore it on the grounds of freedom of speech," Cauty wrote to the Independent.

The prints, grouped under the title For the Love of Disruptive Strategies and Utopian Visions in Contemporary Art and Culture, include various depictions of the infamous skull. One of them shows a man with the skull for his head reading a book titled A Guide to Copyright and Intellectual Property Law.

The prints were sold to help reimburse Cartrain, who, according to a note on the site, collected his £200 today.

"We would like to point out... that although this appeal was focused on the Hirst vs Cartrain episode, it was intended to be a creative exercise that mocked and exposed the idiocy [of] an overbearing and thoughtless approach to copyright control that creates fear and censorship in the arts," the creators wrote. "It was and is not a critical crusade against Damien Hirst as an artist or the nature and degree of his success."

"Thanks to all of you who sent in artworks with more fevered opinions about this," the post adds, "but for the sake of clarity we will save them for another occasion."