# How did composers copyright?



## Crazywater (Feb 8, 2013)

Hi folks

I've registered with the website and joined the forum to ask for a little bit of info if that's okay.

I'm writing a short story about a woman who plays classical music. A very small part of the story deals with copyright and I'm wondering if any of the die-hard classical fans out there know how a classical composer would copyright his music around the early 1800's?

Thanks for any info


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Crazywater said:


> Hi folks
> 
> I've registered with the website and joined the forum to ask for a little bit of info if that's okay.
> 
> ...


Things were somewhat different from region to region and genre to genre, but piracy was widespread and composers would often get a single fee for delivering a work to a publisher (Beethoven, often), or they would keep their scores from the public and just perform them (Paganini, often).

In the 19th century things gradually got better than the previous century though. The Berne Convention of 1886 was the first international agreement of copyright; before that, everything was very loose. This PDF has a historical survey on the subject https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=315 , especially page 5 to 16.


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## Crazywater (Feb 8, 2013)

Thanks Joen, I'll have a look at the document. I don't have to have really indepth knowledge on this, but since I'm writing about something I have very little knowledge on, I'd like to learn some facts about it first, especially since I'll be entering it into a competition.
I've already looked up the years classical music covers - the answer to that one varies from site to site but it appears to be 1750 to 1830, just before the romantic era, and I've looked up most popular instruments used.

The info you've given me about everything being loose will be useful in characters' dialogue.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Things were loose enough that Beethoven was known, at least once, to have sold the same piece to two different publishers (each of course believing they were the sole agents for publishing -- Beethoven collecting two fees for one work!

Sheet music (sonatas, chamber music) was expensive! One 'authorized' publisher was not protected by watchdog organizations, and could do little if another publisher in a distant town, let alone another nation, bothered to copy and print a 'pirated edition' from existing printed matter.


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## Crazywater (Feb 8, 2013)

My story deals with composers from around 1810, so the chances are there would be no official copyright procedure/law I think, from what I've read from Joen's post, your post and the document so far. Incidentally, the composers are made up by me, not real composers.

This is all useful information I'm getting. My gut feeling told me this would be a good place to start. I think I was right.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Cooper's Beethoven has a lot of detail on publication practices, coordinating publishing rights in different countries, piracy and how to avoid it, how composers of the time got paid, etc. Recommended reading.


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## Crazywater (Feb 8, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Cooper's Beethoven has a lot of detail on publication practices, coordinating publishing rights in different countries, piracy and how to avoid it, how composers of the time got paid, etc. Recommended reading.


I did a quick google-search on that. Do you mean the book Beethoven by Barry Cooper?

I don't go into great detail about it in the story but two characters talk about it briefly so I want to have a couple of facts straight. The story isn't based on real life composers, it's all fictional.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Yes, Barry Cooper's book "Beethoven." If you have a specific question, we can try to answer it here -- no guarantees however!


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