History of music publishing
[4] His first collection was entitled Harmonice Musices Odhecaton and contained 96 polyphonic compositions, mostly by Josquin des Prez and Heinrich Isaac.
[5] With his method, the staff lines, words and notes were all part of a single piece of type, making it much easier to produce.
The concept of musical copyright had its beginnings in the reign of King Henry VIII of England who required copies of all printed matter to be sent to him and offered protection to printers in the form of licenses, primarily to produce a new source of revenue.
In 1575 Elizabeth I granted Thomas Tallis and his pupil William Byrd a 21-year patent monopoly on the printing and publishing of polyphonic music.
[6] In 1618 German composer Heinrich Schütz submitted a petition to Johann Georg I to secure an electoral printing patent, for a period of ten years.
The earliest attempt at a printed musical copyright notice appears in the "Shir Hashirim" of Salomone Rossi (Venice, 1623) which includes a rabbinical curse on those infringing the text, written by Leon of Modena.
Many years later, in 1847, this inspired the composer and librettist Ernest Bourget to claim payment for each performance of his works at the Café des Ambassadeurs, a leading Café-concert venue of that time.
A lawsuit won by Bourget and others in 1851 led to the formation of the Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique (SACEM) – the first performing rights society in the world.
The predecessor to the Gesellschaft für Musikalische Aufführungs und Mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (GEMA) was formed in Germany by composer Richard Strauss in 1903.
Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf of Leipzig, a printer and general publisher, decided to specialize in music printing as of 1754.
They were the original publishers for a who's-who of great German composers, including Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Wagner.
They specialized in French and Italian operas and, more recently, have published works by Hindemith, Stravinsky, Orff, Schoenberg and Henze.
This changed only gradually as young men involved in other business enterprises began to perceive the possibilities for enrichment in song publishing.
By 1900, most music publishers had clustered their businesses along 28th St. (between 6th Ave. and Broadway) in order to be closer to New York's thriving entertainment center.
It quickly attracted prominent composers such as Irving Berlin and John Philip Sousa, and was able to ensure that everyone was properly paid and credited for their work.
For instance: A blanket license is an annual fee paid to one of the key performing rights organizations (PRO) (SESAC, ASCAP, or BMI).
It serves as a notice to the composition owners that sales are forthcoming and that royalties dictated by a statutory rate will be owed and paid to them.
[11] Lastly, a sync license grants the right to use the composition in the synchronization of a recording over a moving picture in a film, advertisement, television show or any other audiovisual work.
For the same synchronization use, one must also obtain a master use license, which grants rights to use the sound recording, which is a separately owned asset from the composition.
For example, in 1929, Warner Brothers paid 10 million dollars for Harms, Witmark and Remick; MGM bought Leo Feist Inc. and some smaller companies; Paramount started its own publishing division, Famous Music.
