Ode to royalty payments
February 25, 2024 3:25 PM Subscribe
Did Ludwig van Beethoven make any payments to the estate of Friedrich Schiller for the use of Schiller's Ode to Joy in his Ninth Symphony?
If I'm remembering correctly, Beethoven was concerned (rightly so) by the unauthorized publication of his works around the world, for which he received no payment. I've wondered if it was customary at the time to pay royalties for the use of prior work, the way he used the text of the Ode to Joy in his symphony, and whether Beethoven made such payments.
If I'm remembering correctly, Beethoven was concerned (rightly so) by the unauthorized publication of his works around the world, for which he received no payment. I've wondered if it was customary at the time to pay royalties for the use of prior work, the way he used the text of the Ode to Joy in his symphony, and whether Beethoven made such payments.
Best answer: My recollection of copyright issues in Beethoven's time, is that there was a mish-mash of relatively small jurisdictions throughout Europe, each of which had different laws and no real coordination among them.
Also, copyright terms were very short and covered publishing (ie, printing books) - nothing like the vast array of rights authors now have under copyright.
Our current regime where there are international copyright treaties and copyright in one country is recognized and enforceable, at least to a reasonable degree, in almost all other countries, simply did not exist at all.
So what would happen with Beethoven's music is he would sell the right to publish some music to a publisher in say country A and B. But publishers in countries C, D, and E would buy a copy of the music in country A or B, take it home to their own country, make their own edition, and sell it to their heart's content, without paying him anything.
You can call this a "pirate" edition or whatever, but there was really no way to enforce copyright in all these different countries, short of a whole army of lawyers in a variety of different places to register and then enforce the copyright. The "pirateers" were probably not even breaking the law in their jurisdiction.
In addition to that, the whole idea of copyright was fairly nascent. Periods of protection were quite short - compared to what we see today, when the periods are extraordinarily long - and there was a welter of different approachs, term lengths, and other details among the different jurisdictions and countries. And "short" meant short - periods of 2-3 years were quite common, I believe, and a period as long as 10 years quite unusual.
(In the U.S., copyright term starting in 1790 was 14 years with possibility of a 14 year renewal. In 1830 this was extended to 28 years with a possibility of 14 year renewal. I believe the length those terms was very generous for the time period.)
Coming to Ode to Joy, it was written in 1885 and Schiller died in 1805.
Beethoven's 9th symphony was published in about 1824.
Whatever copyright regime Ode to Joy fell under in 1885, it was probably well expired by 1824.
I would be amazed if Beethoven or his publishers paid anything to anyone for the use of it 40 years later. I would be equally amazed if anyone expected them to.
An additional question is what Beethoven himself would have received for composing (publishing, etc) the symphony. It's not like printed copies of a symphony were selling like hotcakes all across the continent and Beethoven was receiving a commission on each copy sold.
Rather, the symphony was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London. They paid Beethoven a flat fee for the commission and played the premier. That was pretty much the beginning and end of money Beethoven received for the work.
When a composer like Beethoven did have a work published, the publisher would typically pay the composer a flat fee for the work, and that was it. Here is a reasonably accurate description of how Beethoven was paid for various things like publishing a work.
Here is a quick rundown of the development of copyright law in Europe. You'll see that there were some pretty dramatic shifts in thinking about this over time, and most of our modern ideas about copyright - such as the author's right to be paid royalties on each copy sold, the idea of moral rights, and the idea of copyright that lasts decades, or the author's lifetime, or even beyond - did not fall into place until early in the 20th century. That's roughly 100 years after the 9th Symphony.
In 1824 - or even more, 1885 - they likely would have thought of copyright as something that belongs more to the publisher and the work published, lasts maybe a couple of years after publication, and prevents other publishers from republishing the same book in that same jurisdiction for that period.
To the degree any author was paid for anything, it was something like a flat fee from the publisher to the author for the right to publish the work, and never anything like royalties per copy printed or per performance.
posted by flug at 2:53 AM on February 26, 2024 [10 favorites]
Also, copyright terms were very short and covered publishing (ie, printing books) - nothing like the vast array of rights authors now have under copyright.
Our current regime where there are international copyright treaties and copyright in one country is recognized and enforceable, at least to a reasonable degree, in almost all other countries, simply did not exist at all.
So what would happen with Beethoven's music is he would sell the right to publish some music to a publisher in say country A and B. But publishers in countries C, D, and E would buy a copy of the music in country A or B, take it home to their own country, make their own edition, and sell it to their heart's content, without paying him anything.
You can call this a "pirate" edition or whatever, but there was really no way to enforce copyright in all these different countries, short of a whole army of lawyers in a variety of different places to register and then enforce the copyright. The "pirateers" were probably not even breaking the law in their jurisdiction.
In addition to that, the whole idea of copyright was fairly nascent. Periods of protection were quite short - compared to what we see today, when the periods are extraordinarily long - and there was a welter of different approachs, term lengths, and other details among the different jurisdictions and countries. And "short" meant short - periods of 2-3 years were quite common, I believe, and a period as long as 10 years quite unusual.
(In the U.S., copyright term starting in 1790 was 14 years with possibility of a 14 year renewal. In 1830 this was extended to 28 years with a possibility of 14 year renewal. I believe the length those terms was very generous for the time period.)
Coming to Ode to Joy, it was written in 1885 and Schiller died in 1805.
Beethoven's 9th symphony was published in about 1824.
Whatever copyright regime Ode to Joy fell under in 1885, it was probably well expired by 1824.
I would be amazed if Beethoven or his publishers paid anything to anyone for the use of it 40 years later. I would be equally amazed if anyone expected them to.
An additional question is what Beethoven himself would have received for composing (publishing, etc) the symphony. It's not like printed copies of a symphony were selling like hotcakes all across the continent and Beethoven was receiving a commission on each copy sold.
Rather, the symphony was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London. They paid Beethoven a flat fee for the commission and played the premier. That was pretty much the beginning and end of money Beethoven received for the work.
When a composer like Beethoven did have a work published, the publisher would typically pay the composer a flat fee for the work, and that was it. Here is a reasonably accurate description of how Beethoven was paid for various things like publishing a work.
Here is a quick rundown of the development of copyright law in Europe. You'll see that there were some pretty dramatic shifts in thinking about this over time, and most of our modern ideas about copyright - such as the author's right to be paid royalties on each copy sold, the idea of moral rights, and the idea of copyright that lasts decades, or the author's lifetime, or even beyond - did not fall into place until early in the 20th century. That's roughly 100 years after the 9th Symphony.
In 1824 - or even more, 1885 - they likely would have thought of copyright as something that belongs more to the publisher and the work published, lasts maybe a couple of years after publication, and prevents other publishers from republishing the same book in that same jurisdiction for that period.
To the degree any author was paid for anything, it was something like a flat fee from the publisher to the author for the right to publish the work, and never anything like royalties per copy printed or per performance.
posted by flug at 2:53 AM on February 26, 2024 [10 favorites]
Flug means 1785.
posted by Namlit at 4:30 AM on February 26, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by Namlit at 4:30 AM on February 26, 2024 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: Thank you, flug! That's fascinating, and more info than I was expecting. Somehow I hadn't realized there was such a time gap between the two, which effectively made the whole question moot. But the background of how copyright worked then is also really interesting. Marking this resolved.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:24 AM on February 26, 2024
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:24 AM on February 26, 2024
Durable and wide-reaching intellectual property rights for things like poetry and classical music simply didn't exist during the lifetimes of either Schiller or Beethoven. Generally speaking a composer (and a librettist, if applicable) would be paid by the commissioner (the Philharmonic Society of London in the case of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony) and that was it. Maybe a sufficiently powerful composer might strike a deal with a publisher for, e.g., printing and sale of a piano reduction score, but there was nothing that would prevent a rival publisher from doing the same with no compensation to the composer. Many if not most of the big publishing houses got their start because a company's copyist would make an extra copy for himself, which he could subsequently sell or rent to other companies who might want to perform the work if it proved sufficiently popular. Composers usually made no money from subsequent performances of their works by other companies unless they were specifically engaged to, e.g., make modifications or serve as concertmaster ("conductors" as we understand them today didn't become particularly common until well into the 19th century).
posted by slkinsey at 9:43 AM on February 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by slkinsey at 9:43 AM on February 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
You have to be proper daft to hear a song celebrating the new funicular railway and think it's an old folk song. It's not hidden away in the depths of the verse either, it's right there in the title. Twice.
posted by vincebowdren at 2:38 PM on February 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by vincebowdren at 2:38 PM on February 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
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Funicoli, Funicola
"German composer Richard Strauss heard the song while on a tour of Italy six years after it was written. He thought that it was a traditional Neapolitan folk song and incorporated it into his Aus Italien tone poem. Denza filed a lawsuit against him and won, and Strauss was forced to pay him a royalty fee."
posted by bq at 7:15 PM on February 25, 2024 [1 favorite]