[2025] EWHC 1954 (IPEC)

Goat Head Lucifer

Again, the only issue as to this work is that of originality. Mr Bray accepted that Mr Lant produced it, but said that he had learned that it was copied from a painting by Austin Osman Spare used on the cover of a book called Man, Myth & Magic. Mr Lant said that he may have been inspired by the Spare work but said he had done a good deal of work to produce his own image, which he intended to show the face of Satan. He gave evidence of how he had worked on the image by sketching himself pulling faces in a mirror. He said that the Spare picture shows a bat rather than a goat, and whilst if that is so it is a strange sort of bat, in my view the creature depicted is not much like a goat. There are certainly differences between it and Goat Head Lucifer. It has huge ears, whilst Mr Lant’s image has twisted horns, the shape of the eyes and nose are different, and Mr Lant’s version lacks the mop of hair or fur shown in the Spare picture.

Again, I have no hesitation in finding that the creation of Goat’s Head Lucifer would not have been a purely mechanical exercise, nor was the result dictated by technical considerations, rules or other constraints which left no room for creative freedom. I find that copyright does subsist in it, and it was accepted by the Defendants that the copyright would belong to Mr Lant.