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History of Music Piracy

sheet music
Although “the illicit reproduction of musical scores had existed since at least the seventeenth century. . . it had never been a systemic problem before [the nineteenth century], because the enterprise of music publishing had not centered on a property principle” (328-329). However, by the end of the 1800’s, copyright law in both Europe and United States had evolved to incorporate printed musical compositions (The Copyright Act of 1831 expanded the law to include musical compositions, although only the reproduction right for printed music was protected). This broadening of copyright regimes, together with contemporaneous technological and social changes, set the stage for a commercial explosion of popular music. With the advent of photolithography music could be mass-produced more cheaply than by the conventional method of engraved plates. Meanwhile, the increasing urbanization and rising middle- and lower-class incomes during this period, coupled with the “Victorian phenomenon of ‘piano mania’” created a completely new market for music (Johns 330).Thus by the end of the 19th century virtually all the steps were in place to safeguard the rights of a composer and therefore to render the activity of music publishing a viable business.

At the same time, rising demand and “the ability to produce practically exact copies at very low cost [similarly] revolutionized piratical possibilities.”

In this context, the case of sheet music piracy in England circa the turn of the twentieth century offers a paradigmatic example. The Musical Copyright Act of 1902 was an act of the British parliament, lobbied for by the nascent Music Publisher’s Association, an alliance encompassing “not only all the major London publishers but also a number of authors and composers, (John’s 332),” that provided that the owner of a copyrighted musical work—a melody or harmony “printed, reduced to writing, or otherwise graphically produced or reproduced”—could apply to a court of summary jurisdiction with evidence that pirated copies of the work were being "hawked, carried about, sold or offered for sale", and that the court could order law enforcement agents to seize these and bring pirated re-productions before the court.

If it was proven the copies were pirated, the court could order them to be destroyed, or delivered to the copyright owner. It also empowered any constable, on the written request (and risk) of the copyright owner or their designated agent, to seize without warrant any pirated copy being hawked for sale and bring them before a court; on the proof that they were copyright infringements, they could then be disposed of by the court as above. In the context of this act, "musical work" meant a melody or harmony "printed, reduced to writing, or otherwise graphically produced or reproduced". Recorded music was not envisaged in the scope of the legislation.

CDs, and the beginning of the digital age
~CD ripping ~napstar

peer-to-peer technology
~bit-torrent ~the pirate bay