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Dalanda Jalloh The Hogarth Act seems to be a law that protects the rights of a creator from others who aim to claim the ideas of the original creator, as their own. Hogarth was a man who "made his money through the sale of engravings rather than original paintings" and used his art to make a living. Because he had suffered from pirated copies of some of his work, specifically, 'A Harlot's Progress' (a set of paintings and engravings done by Hogarth) ,before they had even been published, he sought out a mechanism to prevent this mistreatment again. This was ruining his livelihood and taking away from the glory he rightly deserved for such originality. Hogarth was an avant garde of his time, with his creative genius leading him to create new, contemporary, art. His rendition of a famous opera called The Beggar's Opera, involved making figures resemble the people on the stage. It was as if these figures were actually speaking in the paintings. These original paintings were copied and in the process, there were slight discrepancies between the original Hogarth works and the 'copied versions'. Such discrepancies brought into question who actually created the works. Some even argued that the third painting in the collection of The Beggar's Opera were so different that they could not have been his own. Before the production of 'A Harlot's Progress' such "original engravings--invented images and stories--did not exist at anything approaching this level". Hogarth introduced the idea of considering the value and importance of mans original work. Through his own negative experience he brought about new ideas about originality and copyright. Due to his great knack for 'narrative invention' and creativity, he needed to find a way to reserve his creative genius for himself. Other artists were not to reap the benefits of his mind while he suffered at their opportunistic hands. It is intriguing that it was only until Hogarth brought about the issue of copyright that it was considered. A link to some of Hogarth's Engravings currently for sale: |
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Charles Saunders One of the most important aspects in incentivizing the production of creative work is ensuring that the artist receives full compensation for the fruits of his labor. In short, there is no reason to spend time, money and effort in producing something that is valued to society (be it an invention, a work of art, or a brand name) if the producer can't be assured of just compensation. Copyright laws solve this problem by prohibiting something from reaching public domain until the creator is allowed to profit from his achievement for a specified period of time. It appears that this was a large issue in 18th century Britain. According to the account on the experiences of William Hogarth, piracy was rampant, with etchings, engravings, and prints being so cheap that mass reproduction of an artist's original work was cheap and profitable. Printsellers had a virtual monopoly on the art market, with no other channels existing that connected the artist and the consumer. Printsellers then were able to mass produce reproductions of the original work at no greater benefit to the artist. Other pirates exacerbated the problem, with cheaper knock-off prints flooding the market and hurting the profit margins of artists. Hogarth experienced considerable personal loss from these factors, leading him to become one of the most vocal proponents for the installation of copyright laws for works of art. Because he worked in a wide variety of mediums and appealed to both the high and low audiences (his works ranged from royal portraits to paintings of condemned prisoners), Hogarth had access to a potentially giant market but experienced very little proportional financial remuneration due to the rampant piracy and printseller's monopolies. He first tried to mitigate this loss through openly advertised subscription services for Midnight Modern Conversation, an etching depicting a drinking house that was popular to its subject matter and the timing of the concurrent unpopular Excise Bill. The subscriptions did not eliminate instances of piracy, but represented an important first step in connecting the producer, Hogarth, directly to his target audience and eliminating the printseller middlemen completely. In this way Hogarth could capture all profit from the primary market and subscription purchases without having a substantial portion of his margins subtracted by the printsellers. Piracy was not lessened, however, and there appeared an infinite variety of copied etchings on everything "from snuffboxes to fan mounts." Eventually Hogarth, fed up with the rampant piracy from his work Harlot's Progress, led the crusade for the Engraver's Act, nicknamed the "Hogarth Act," to appear before Parliament. This act sought to protect the artist's copyright for a period of fourteen years, guarding against the evils of copying, the evils of the printseller intermediary, and the artist's right to his property. An additional goal was to increase the quality of art in 18th century Britain, as the greater ensured return on produced art was hoped to create a stronger incentive for prospective artists to enter the market, and thus raise the overall quality of British art. This effect would have positive social benefit, as the public would have a greater variety of high-quality art to choose from, it would have positive economic benefit, as a greater supply of artists would increase competition among them, leading to higher quality art as artists competed against each other, and prices would ultimately fall. It would also have positive political benefit, as increased quality of art in Britain would increase the British cultural capital relative to other influential nations on the European continent. Needless to say, the act soon passed, with the final variation extending a copyright to fourteen years and charging a fine per instance of a copied product that was discovered. This act had lasting repercussions throughout the art market and helped legitimize art as a product that carried inherent economic value and was the private property of its creator. |
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Elena Cestero |
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Kelly Zona Hogarth was one of the most well received artists of his time in eighteenth century England and because of this was plagued by a following of copy artists who damaged his ability to profit from his own work. Eventually, the Engraver's Act, (which because of his extensive efforts would become known as the Hogarth Act), created one of the first copyright laws to protect artists rights, and began to shape the basis for the modern art market. Hogarth was in a unique position, he was not only a painter, but also an engraver, distributer, and advertiser of his own works. He was therefore able to cut out the middlemen of engravers and print-sellers (Paulson, 36). However, this put the extra burden on him to reproduce mass quantities of his works and sell them himself. He continually lost profits to cheap copies of his engravings sold at much lower prices. Initial attempts to circumvent plagiarism involved selling his engravings in sets of "limited editions" to patrons with subscriptions (Paulson, 36). However, he was constrained from further profiting off of his own works when he reached the limit of engravings he had set fourth. Paradoxically, his strategy to remain profitable in the art market limited his right to his own property. One of the issues Hogarth grappled with was the "analogy between the emulation of upper-class behavior and the copying of art: both are based on the assumption that the copy is as good as the original" (Paulson, 36). He brought this issue to light through satire in perhaps his best known work, The Beggar's Opera of 1728 (Simon, 257). Hogarth afterward produced a series of paintings depicting his "opera," thought the legitimacy of one of the paintings is questionable. Many of its details are not consistent with the other paintings, such as personal characteristics of the subjects, stylistic inconsistencies, and the handling of the paint itself (Simon, 259). One speculation is that this painting was commissioned to an anonymous artist by the owner of the New Theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which had produced The Beggar's Opera (Simon, 268). Either way, Hogarth wanted to protect his own interests and his copyright law was in the works. Hogarth began to form his own act on the basis on the Literary Copyright Act of 1709, which gave copyrights to owners for twenty-one years, and copiers would have to pay fines if caught (Paulson, 37). He cited this act in an initial pamphlet, and included his thoughts on the need for "Improvement of the Arts" in England, which prescribed giving power back to the artists through copyright law, allowing them to profit without fear of copiers, and to give them leverage with print-sellers (Paulson, 37). Hogarth's proposed solution was to pass a law "against one artists copying the designs of another. By "copying" is meant a shape-for-shape, distance-for-distance, part-for-part reproduction" (Paulson, 37). Soon after this pamphlet, Hogarth, along with a few others, petitioned Parliament. The committee approved and ordered that, "leave be given to bring in a Bill for the Encouragement of the Arts of designing, engraving, and etching, historical and other Prints, by vesting the Properties thereof in the Inventors and Engravers, during the Time therein to be mentioned" (Paulson, 40). The act ensured artists rights to their works for fourteen years, and was to go into effect on June 25th 1735 At that time Hogarth decided to delay the publication of his latest work for fear of copying. However, a print-seller sent copy artists to Hogarth's residence under the guise of interested patrons, and copies of the work were available for sale before the newly formed Engraver's Act went into effect (Paulson, 42). In a genius move to compete with the knock offs, Hogarth permitted his originals to be copied by an approved engraver and sold those copies at a competitive price (Paulson, 43). Thus the new market strategy was to sell original works at a higher price with subscription, and at a lower price "with the usual allowance" to print dealers (Paulson, 44). The passing of Hogarth's Act as well as Hogarth's ingenious strategies of advertising, allowed for the replacement of personal patronage and helped to bring about the emergence of the modern art market in Britain.
While the modern day creative arts market has developed more complex and experimental modes of interaction between artists and their audiences, the basic copyright issues and the marketing techniques that Hogarth developed are continuing to evolve and shape the market today. Bibliography: Paulson, Ronald. Hogarth: High Art and Low. Simon, Robin. Hogarth, France, and British Art: The Rise of the Arts in 18th-Century Britain.
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Jacqueline Park |
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Tadd Phillips |
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