At 5:02 PM -0500 12/5/06, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 5 Dec 2006 at 10:47, Mark D Lew wrote:
What I want to know is whether Haydn would have written his pieces if
he had a secure copyright for, say, 28 years from publication, as
opposed to 70 years after his death. I think he would. If that's
sufficient to persuade him to write and publish, then why offer him
100 more bonus years?
Haydn had *no* comyright protection in the modern sense. He had
nothing more than a right to keep the quartets a secret until he sold
them to the first publisher. After that, he collected no fees on them
at all.
Which was the case throughout most of music history. But remember
also that throughout most of music history, no composer wrote for
publication. They composed what was needed for their employment, for
their students, what was asked for (or ordered) by their patrons, and
so on. Does anyone actually believe that Petrucci paid Josquin or
Marco Cara royalties for their sales? I'm trying to recall whether
there actually were any true freelance composers before Haydn's 10
years in Vienna, and Mozart's later 10 years, and i can't think of
any. (Maybe because they starved to death!) As much as some
composers traveled around, they traveled from appointment to
appointment, not just from city to city.
It's hard for those of us involved in classical music to realize or
admit, but NONE of that music was written for posterity. It was
written for immediate use by musicians usually well known to the
composer, in performances supported by the court or church that
employed them. And there was a continuing demand for new music.
That's the real reason they kept composing. We certainly can't
compare that with 20th century academic composers. The closer
comparison would be with popular songwriters. And in the absence of
copyright, ALL music was public domain as soon as it became available
"in fixed form"!!
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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