Paper short abstract:

I will explore the production of facsimile reproductions of Hokusai's most famous print series in the context of 'copyright' in the print industry in the 19th Century. This paper demonstrates how print producers republished designs and deepens our understanding of copyright issues at that time.

Paper long abstract:

Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji was Hokusai's most ambitious large-format (ōban), colour print project. The series was so popular that Hokusai finally designed a total of forty-six prints bearing the title 'thirty-six views of Mt Fuji' between 1831 and 1833.

The popularity of Hokusai's works led to the creation of another type of print production－the production of facsimile reproductions (fukusei).

Fukusei played a crucial role in the development of Hokusai's legacy in the 19th century. However, because of the negative image of copies as 'fakes', there has been a reluctance among scholars to explore the production of facsimile prints. Fukusei of the thirty-six views of Mt. Fuji are still being published even today. A miniature version (yatsugiri-ban) of the series was already published in Osaka in the early 1830s shortly after Hokusai's Edo version had appeared. However, it was a new take on Edo prints by an Osaka ukiyo-e artist and is not a perfect example of copying Hokusai's original. Later, in the Meiji period, the publisher Kobayashi Bunshichi (1861-1923) produced proper fukusei of the series in 1880-90s. That was the first attempt to produce fukusei prints that faithfully reproduced the original works.

In the 1880s there was a strong international market for works by Hokusai. In those years, some publishers produced facsimile reproductions of Hokusai's books and prints for foreign customers. In parallel, the woodblock print technology that had dominated the publishing industry in the Edo period suffered a drastic decline. The biggest reason for this decline was the rapid adoption of Western technologies by publishers in Japan. In addition, the supply of woodblocks was declining, which meant that the costs of printing became more and more expensive. It may perhaps have been the higher prices that foreigners were prepared to pay for woodblock prints that made the continued production of prints using cut woodblocks commercially viable.

The context in which reproductions of original prints from newly cut blocks came to be produced casts light on changing ideas of copyright, on publication networks and on the impact of new technologies on the publishing industry.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses a discussion between the publishers who published similar Kyoto guidebooks including Miyako Meisho Tebiki An'nai. This study reveals how they survived in the constraints of copyright and contributes to understand of the circumstances of the publishing industry in the Edo-period.

Paper long abstract:

Various Kyoto guidebooks had been published during Edo period because Kyoto has already the popular tourist spot. In 1762, the publisher Hachimonjiya Hachizaemon was ready to publish the Kyoto guidebook Miyako Meisho Tebiki An'nai 都名所手引案内. At the same time, the three publishers including Zeniya Soshirô who held the copyright Miyako Suzume 都雀 planned to publish the enlarged edition as Karaku Meisho Junranki 花洛名所巡覧記 and the publisher Shohon'ya Kichibei had published the guidebook Karaku Meishoki 花洛名所記, and Kyô Uchimairi 京内参りwas being sold by Kawanamiya Shirobei. Thus, many similar guidebooks were coming onto the market at the same time from rival publishers.

Some of them might have been regarded as partly plagiarised books (ruihan). The publishers of ruihan were subject to penalties by the publisher's guilds because ruihan snatched away profits from the publisher of the original 'legitimate' book. But in this case, the publishers didn't charge one another though they could insist no their rights and try to block the production and sale of their rivals' publications. How did they protect their profit?

In the early Edo period, a system of the collaborative publishing by multiple pub-lishers(aiaiban) was widely used. In the case of aiaiban, each publisher had a portion of the copyright and fractional ownership over the printing blocks. The pub-lishers distributed profits in proportion to ownership ratio. When a dispute for copyright occurred between publishers, they often chose to divide and share copy-right and profits. The surviving records of Zeniya Soshiro reveal that the publishers tried to coexist with his rivals to secure copyright and profits. By collaborating publisher-booksellers could expand their stock.

By referring to this and other cases, this paper tries to reveal the circumstances goerning copyright in the publishing industry in the Edo-period.

Paper short abstract:

The paper will analyse a dispute between two publishers of Edo and Nagoya over the publication of an illustrated book, the Bunpô soga, its background, settlement and the aftermath. I hope to thereby contribute to the understanding of the idea of copyright in the second half of the Edo-period.

Paper long abstract:

Previous research on the publication history of Bunpô soga 文鳳麁画 (Rough sketches of Bunpô, published in 1800) has shown that at an early stage the printing blocks and remaining unsold copies of the book changed hands from the original publisher Fûgetsudô Magosuke to Eirakuya Tôshirô both being Nagoya based bookseller-publishers. At the latest in 1814 Eirakuya advertised the book as a publication of his own in a block-holder's catalogue (zôhan mokuroku 蔵版目録) and continued to market the book in various editions as a steady seller for more than sixty years right into the Meiji-period.

This leaves one with the question of why Fûgetsudô who remained in business until the early Meiji years would give up his rights to this potentially successful publication?

Documentary evidence from the records of the publisher's guilds in Kyoto and Osaka strongly suggests that the reason for that lay in a dispute with the Edo publisher Suwaraya Ichibê. He had filed in the first half of the year 1800 a complaint with the guilds that the Bunpô soga would violate the rights on his Ryaku gashiki 畧画式 (1795) and Jinbutsu ryaku gashiki 人物畧画式 (1799). The guilds reacted by issuing an order to their members in the seventh month in Osaka and sometime between the fifth and ninth month in Kyoto to cease sale of the book (uridome 売止).

But how then did Eirakuya manage to resume production and sale of the title - apparently unchallenged - after only a few years had passed?

By closely analysing this incident the paper tries to gain a deeper understanding of the workings of disputes between publishers and between publishers and guilds and thereby to add to the understanding of the idea of copyright in the second half of the Edo-period.