Classical music lovers know that in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, composers shifted from seeking patrons to support them to becoming freelance composers and performers of their own work. This was partially because of cultural changes, but I learned recently that legal factors also played a role. A key decision in British law was Bach v Longman, where judge Lord Mansfield ruled in 1777 that printed music was protected by copyright.

The plaintiffs were Johan Christian Bach and Karl Friedrich Abel. Johann Christian, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, had moved to England and become a court composer under George III. (I learned about this while doing research for my George III Bluesky feed.) Abel was another German composer who had moved to England, and who together with Bach put on a series of concerts. I guess Handel set a trend. The defendant was publisher James Longman, who had published Bach’s music without permission. Britain in the eighteenth century was ahead of other nations in developing copyright law, so the decision helped to establish musical copyrights in Europe and America.

Before their works were copyrightable, it was much harder for composers to make a living without a patron. It took a long time afterward for composers to get reliable protection against unauthorized publication. Decades later, Beethoven struggled to get paid for published editions of his work. The fragmentation of the German states into a lot of small jurisdictions must have made it harder; even if he could get exclusive rights in Vienna, would he be able to stop a publisher in Hamburg? Late in the nineteenth century, Gilbert and Sullivan had to file for copyright in the US to stop unauthorized productions of their operas over here.

“The Struggle for Music Copyright” by Michael Carroll discusses the evolution of copyright law as applied to musical compositions. It’s dense reading but very interesting.