Copyright for music was non-existent in Beethoven’s time. Piracy and unauthorized publishing were commonplace. What practices did composers follow to make the best out of their sometimes desperate situation? Read on to find out!
Music publishing gathered speed in the second part of the eighteenth century. Partly because of the emerging middle-class society and their ever-growing need for new music pieces to play, partly because of the technical advancements in engraving and printing.
Unfortunate for Beethoven, during his life there were no copyrights for music. Publishers paid a flat fee for music, there were no royalties. The publishers had to hurry and make as many copies, and as fast as they can. Time was the essence in sales! As first original copies started circulating, pirate copies appeared, too. Often the official copyists were the first to do business with them by selling an illegal copy to an unauthorized publisher. Such illegal copies often hit the market before the official ones! Mozart famously made his copyists work in his own home to keep an eye on them. Beethoven, without any legal means, often threatened such publishers and put notices against them in local papers.
Haydn, innovator in music and it seems in publishing business, simultaneously contracted more publishers with territorial exclusivity. This meant that he could sell the same piece multiple times. It required a great deal of organization since originals had to reach each publisher at the same time.
Beethoven himself, a student of Haydn for a short and turbulent period, took over this practice from his old master. Other times he would sell a piece for a patron who had exclusive rights over the music scores for a specified period that usually was no longer than one year. After this period, the composer was free to sell them to publishers.
Another kind of abuse concerning copyrights were the arrangements, transcriptions of original pieces. From Beethoven’s published notice in the Wiener Zeitung from October 20, 1802, it seems publishers could make and issue such versions even without any notification of the composer or the customer:
“I believe that I owe it to the public and myself publicly to announce that the two Quintets in C major and E-flat major, of which the first (taken from a symphony of mine) has been published by Mr. Mollo in Vienna, and the second (taken from my familiar Septet, Op. 20) by Mr. Hoffmeister in Leipzig, are not original quintets but transcriptions prepared by the publishers. The making of transcriptions at the best is a matter against which (in this prolific day of such things) an author must protest in vain; but it is possible at least to demand of the publishers that they indicate the fact on the title-page, so that the honor of the author may not be lessened and the public be not deceived. This much to hinder such things in the future. At the same time I announce that a new Quintet of mine in C major, Op. 29, will shortly be published by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig.”
Beethoven did not live to see it, but few decades after his death copyrights started to be commonplace with actionable laws behind them. This covering in later times protected official publishers, in return they were able to offer higher fees for the composers. Breakthrough on international level came with the Berne Convention in 1886. Members of the convention (179 countries at the moment) shall protect works from other countries just as their own. Also, copyright is valid from the moment a work is finished and registration is not required for it.
