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# Tech Blogs Discover Art World, Copyright Soul-Searching Ensues
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/tech-blogs-discover-art-world-copyright-soul-searching-ensues/
- Published: 2014-01-10T14:10:37.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:44:44.000Z
- Description: A delayed furor has erupted in the tech blogosphere over Sotheby's London £3.5 million (~$5.8 million) sale last October of Glenn Brown's "Ornamental Despair (Painting For Ian Curtis) Copied from the Stars Like Dust, 1986 by Chris Foss."
- Author: Mostafa Heddaya
- Tags: Opinion, Larry Gagosian, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

![glennbrown_main](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/01/glennbrown_main.jpg)

Glenn Brown, “Ornamental Despair (Painting For Ian Curtis) Copied from the Stars Like Dust, 1986 by Chris Foss” (1994) (image via Sotheby’s)

A [delayed furor](http://io9.com/how-a-science-fiction-book-cover-became-a-5-7-million-1497486808?ref=hyperallergic.com) has erupted in the tech blogosphere over Sotheby’s London £3.5 million (\~$5.8 million) sale last October of Glenn Brown’s “Ornamental Despair (Painting For Ian Curtis) Copied from the Stars Like Dust, 1986 by Chris Foss.” At issue is the work’s literal replication — as might be gleaned from its title — of [cover art](http://www.flickr.com/photos/24775309@N05/10386613793/?ref=hyperallergic.com) by [Chris Foss](http://www.chrisfossart.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) for an Isaac Asimov book. The painting is typical of Brown’s practice: “copies” as formal explorations grounded in an art-historical coda to originality. Nonetheless, Brown has been sued for his work in the past. The Turner Prize recipient settled out of court [a 2000 suit](http://artforum.com/news/week=200117?ref=hyperallergic.com) brought against him by Anthony Roberts, who had illustrated a Robert Heinlein cover the artist based a piece upon.

The limits of copyright and transformative use were hotly contested in 2013 as *Patrick Cariou v. Richard Prince* [made its way through the courts](http://hyperallergic.com/69683/court-of-appeals-reverses-ruling-on-prince-v-cariou/). That case is [now over](http://hyperallergic.com/93376/nail-in-the-coffin-for-cariou-v-prince/), having been decided in favor of the copyright “thief,” Prince. Though the tech press largely ignored *Cariou v. Prince*, many blogs in that field frequently advocate against copyright laws in various forms. (See, for example, this [post](http://boingboing.net/2014/01/01/public-domain-day-2014-bad-ti.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) from last week on BoingBoing.)

But what happens when loyalties cross? In the case of Brown, it would appear that BoingBoing’s affinity for science fiction has won out, with an [item yesterday](http://boingboing.net/2014/01/09/plagiarized-paintings-and-the.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) slamming his “plagiarized” painting:

> If you’re ever frustrated when someone looks at modern art and dismisses it out of hand, or assumes that the artist and the business are a conspiracy of pretentious idiots and fraudsters, just remember that people like Brown are why.

Not all who wander are lost, however. In a surprisingly lucid (though inevitably flawed) [explainer](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/2014/01/09/how-plagiarized-art-sells-for-millions/?ref=hyperallergic.com) of “modern art” posted at *Scientific American* (and [discussed by io9](http://io9.com/how-to-understand-why-an-awesome-book-cover-became-expe-1497969800?ref=hyperallergic.com) in a follow-up to their controversy-initiating story), the theory underpinning the appropriated work of artists like Brown and Prince is laid out. After a breezy survey of key developments (Mondrian, Indiana, the internet), the writer concludes:

> Glenn Brown’s ripped-off science-fiction cover is worth millions because we spend all day reblogging pictures of *Firefly*–*My Little Pony* mash-ups on Tumblr without giving a shit about the mash-up artist’s name (or even deeper, the names of the artists who designed the Firefly cast’s costumes or the My Little Pony characters in the first place).  
>  
> Fine art culture is holding up a big expensive mirror at you and internet culture right now.

Just the kind of level-headed reassurance that all of us — or at least Richard Prince, who also [copies book covers](http://www.fultonryder.com/art?ref=hyperallergic.com), and Larry Gagosian, whose gallery [represents](http://www.gagosian.com/artists/glenn-brown?ref=hyperallergic.com) both Prince and Brown — can get behind.