MR. EMERSON TENNENT ON COPYRIGHT OF DESIGNS.
IN this volume will be found a clear analysis of the question of Copy- right of Designs for Printed Fabrics, and a good examination of the evidence delivered before the Committee which last session sat upon the subject. It also contains a variety of facts con- nected with the practice of the cotton-trade, and the result of a tour in Belgium, Prussia, and some other German States, made by Mr. EMERSON TENNENT in company with Mr. THOMSON (not Lord SYDENHAM) to investigate the condition of the cotton-manu- facture in those countries, so far as regarded their power of com- peting with England. On this important point, the facts put for- ward by Mr. TENNENT are at direct variance with those stated be- fore the Committee of the House of Commons by two witnesses who represented themselves as having travelled expressly to ascer- tain the true state of the case. The question at issue between the parties is to a certain extent one of detail, relating to facts con- nected with particular manufactories, or information alleged to have been given by their masters ; but Mr. TENNENT'S statements go the length of showing, that neither by Belgium, Prussia, Saxony, nor even America, is English supremacy in the cotton-trade endangered. As regards America, his deduction is drawn from a single transaction, and that peculiar—small exportations by Prussia of cotton handkerchiefs and shawls to New York;
whence he argues, that if a country incapable of competing with England can send goods to America, what need we fear from America herself: which is a strange mode of jumping from particulars to universals. His statements as regards Europe are larger, and better-grounded, always assuming their truth : but since persons not connected with the cotton-trade—as Mr. M‘Gsnooa, and travellers in the East, who merely mention the fact incidentally—speak of foreign cottons competing with ours in several markets, we cannot give implicit credit to his sanguine views ; especially as his facts are derived from manufac- turers, and his own examination of the evidence given before the Committee should have taught him the small reliance to be placed upon the statements of such people when they have an object in view. One of the most remarkable points about the evidence, is the disregard to morality which the witnesses display in matters of business.
The question of the Copyright of Designs for Printed Fabrics is shortly this. Originally, London was the seat of the trade ; and "the productions of that early period are still looked upon as those of the old masters of the English school of calico-printing.'" On the sudden growth of the cotton-manufacture in Lancashire, conse- quent upon WATT and AREWRIGIIT'S inventions, the few printers of London found their designs pirated by the legions of the North ; and, after several intermediate steps, an act was passed in 1794, which gave a three-months copyright in a pattern, that being held sufficient to secure the " London season." But times have wonderfully changed since then : the London market is now only one of very many, extending from the middle of Europe to the United States, and thence stretching away to the furthest East ; if a manufacturer brings out a new pattern in the autumn for the foreign market, his copyright expires before the London season begins, or vice versa. And these patterns are expensive affairs. The first step is to procure the designs, (which, in some of the larger houses that bring out many hundred new patterns a year, is of course considerable) ; and of these drawings, from one-tenth
to one-fifth are on an average rejected.
" But as even the most experienced judgment cannot, from the mere in- spection of a pattern upon paper, form a correct decision as to its precise ap- pearance when transferred to cloth, and cannot possibly anticipate all the ca- prices of public taste on which the favourable reception of a pattern depends, at constantly occurs, that of the number even of those selected designs, only a proportion attains a successful sale, the remainder either never being in de- mand at all, or only to such a limited extent as to be unremunerative to the producer.
Thus, of five hundred patterns produced in one year by one house, one hundred alone were decidedly successful, and only fifty moderately so, the rest being failures. And here again it must, of course, be on the sale of the suc- cessful that the printer must rely for compensation for the loss of those which fail; and if his property in these be not secured from infringement, the ruinous consequences to his entire trade mist be sufficiently obvious.
" As to the joint cost of designing, engraving, and cutting, it is difficult to arrive at an accurate calculation, as it varies according to the economy and ar- rangements of different establishments ; but from the evidence given by gen- tlemen examined by the Committee as to the expenses of their several houses in this particular, it appears that it amounts, on an average, to from 51. to 101. each for those employed for garment-printing ; but for furniture-prints the expense is much greater, averaging from 10/. to 351. each ; and many in both branches costing considerably higher than either of these relative estimates ;
• whilst for designing alone, apart from engraving, the expense is equally va- riable, and ranges from a few shillings to 201. per pattern. " The preparations of designs and patterns for some establishments is stated to occupy nearly three months in each year , and the successful patterns which are the real product of that period may be copied by a pirate in a few weeks, at a consequent saving of what is of equal value with money, its equivalent time."
It is superfluous to say that the pirate, or more strictly the pla- giarist, only avails himself of the successful patterns ; and he is able to undersell the original producers, not so much by the mere saving of expense, as by producing an inferior article with the same general effect.
The amount of injury to the manufacturers who originate designs must of course be considerable, though the evidence varies upon this point : but Mr. TENNENT conceives that the injury in- flicted on art is more important than the pecuniary loss to the manufacturers ; the present tendency being towards trashy medi- ocrity, since it is useless to produce what you cannot retain. The plan he proposes is to extend the copyright in designs for printed fabrics from three months to twelve ; which is the period given to patterns for woven fabrics. The odd anomaly in this case is no fault of the law : when Poi:maxi. THOMSON introduced his Copyright Designs Bill, be intended to include printed fabrics ; but the manufacturers objected to some of the regulations, and to the registration-fee of a guinea, which would amount to a heavy tax when many hundred patterns are issued. These difficulties, it seems, can be removed, and part of the trade are anxious to have the same protection as the weavers. Mr. LABOUCHERE last session offered half as much—six months—quite a juste milieu principle. Sir ROBERT PEEL suggested a Committee, as his mode of settlement : Mr. TENNENT consented ; and the result is a report in favour of the twelve months, the volume before us, and a new bill.
The reader who wishes to exhaust the facts and arguments of the subject in all their bearings, may have recourse to Mr. TEN- NENT'S volume; which he will find very ably done—the matter clearly arranged, the ideas well expressed. We will note a point or two of the more general kind. Of the two great national producers, France is celebrated for excellence, England for cheap- ness. The taste of the French design, the superiority of the execution, the harmony of the colours, and the attention paid to the minutest detail, secure their best cottons the preeminence in
the market of the rich wherever they are admitted to competition': but their price is high. The desire for novelty of pattern in cotton- consumers amounts to a positive rage.
" Mr. Kershaw, in his enormous trade of nearly a million of pieces per annum, states that he produces new designs every week, ' week by week' and ' month by month '; and Mr. Lee, a dealer of equal extent, confirms this state- ment by a similar account of the production of fresh varieties week after week, and frequently within the week,' in his own establishment ; the foreign trade especially calling for a constant succession of novelty, and a printer being seldom able to sell the same design a second time to the same individual.' These observations apply chiefly, however, to medium goods and those for ex- port ; those of a more costly character continuing somewhat longer in yogae, and undergoing less rapid changes in public favour, unless exhausted by exten- sive piracy or vulgarized by unworthy copies."
It appears from the evidence of Mr. LOCKETT, a pattern- engraver, who gave the Committee a critical lecture on "originality," that the general effect is the teat by which he would decide piracy or no. The plan, the arrangements, the style in which the ideas are presented, are the things to judge by, not resemblances in parts. He constantly sees the same elements—roses or rose-buds, for example—with the same directions, given out to different pattern- drawers ; yet out of a dozen, no two will be alike—the mind of each will be different. It appears, too, that perfect simplicity is the characteristic of those patterns which have the greatest run and retain the longest hold upon the public mind. " It is the simple and inartificial designs which are in general the most suc- cessful with the public, requiring at once the least labour and expense to in- vent and the least possible cost to copy them. One pattern, known in the trade by the name of the Diorama, was produced by an accident, and' at no cost whatever for designing, and yet sold to the extent of 25,000 pieces in one day. Another, known as Lane's Net, consisting of a very simple arrangement of right lines, was equally a favourite with the public. A simple figure upon a pattern for neckcloths, which costs but a few pence; to invent and a few shil- lings to engrave, and might be copied for 2/., was so successful that the.pro- prietor states it in his estimation to have been worth to him from 2001. to 300/. A popular class of productions, known in the trade by the name of Eccentrics, are produced by a machine combining a peculiar adaptation of the eccentric chuck with Bate's process for engraving fae-similes of bas-reliefs, which at once delineates the device and perfects the engraving at a trifling expense. Some-houses likewise publish no designs except those apparently of the most simple and inelaborate kind; but these are applied with so much skill and judgment, the result of long study of the public taste, that the inventors have established a peculiar reputation for their production, and obtain a more ex- tensive sale, and of course a greater amount of remuneration in consequence.
" In all cases, the design, like the handwriting of an individual, invariably exhibits some feature peculiar to its author, and participates in the general cha- racter of the taste which pervades the productions of his house ; so that the .. invasion of his copyright, by the piratical imitation of his works, is not merely an appropriation of that which has cost him a certain portion of his capital to provide, but is in some degree a trading under his firm, and a gratuitous parti- cipation by a stranger in the profits of that reputation which has cost him years of study and labour to acquire and to establish for himself."
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