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Telemann’s self-publishing business has long been something of a blind spot for historians of music commerce. Surveys of music printing and publishing during the early 18th century often gloss over or fail to mention Telemann’s activities in Hamburg, even though his was arguably the most active music publishing business in Germany during the late 1720s and 1730s. This chapter presents an account of Telemann’s Selbstverlag, or self-publishing business, outlining its practices in some detail. It explores the means by which he established and maintained a base of subscribers for his publications, how he set up a distribution network rivaling those of the leading music publishers in London and Amsterdam, how his practices as a music engraver bear on the publications’ appearance and chronology, and the reasons he stepped away from his self-publishing business in 1740.

The music industry in the United States is relatively small in size but large in cultural presence. It consists of those creating music (artists and composers), those creating or enforcing rights in music (publishers and performing rights licensing organizations), those producing recordings (labels), and those in the marketing of music (distributors). Because there are many labels and only a few distributors, the issue of ownership concentration arises primarily on the distribution level, where four companies dominate. Intellectual property rights are a key element in the music business. Music publishers and performance rights licensing organizations deal with those rights. This chapter examines market concentration trends in music publishing, performance rights, distribution, retailing, and music channels.

Symbols like the service flag furthered community morale in the United States during World War I and evolved to engender memorial organizations like Gold Star Mothers. Music supported both, with three components of the industry—Tin Pan Alley, Kitchen Table publishing, and Song Sharks—differing in key respects: the participation of women composers and lyricists, the focus on mothers and loss, and the mix of ballads, waltz songs, and marches. As the war evolved, so did the responses, with the closing months and aftermath focusing increasingly on soldiers’ fatalities and the expression of grief and mourning. Postwar changes in style and dissemination marked the end of such collective expressions.

This chapter discusses George P. Knauff's music business. When versatile musician and entrepreneur Knauff heard a fiddler playing the Virginia Reels melodies for dancing at social events held at the home of his wife's parents, he sensed a similar chance to enhance his income. It is not clear exactly when he launched into composing and arranging music for profit because a few of his publications lack dates and plate numbers; this includes the first printing of the first two volumes of the Virginia Reels. This suggests an alternative scenario: that his activity as a composer and arranger started after his home and business burned and piggybacked on his next focus for earning a living, which was teaching. Whether initially part of his brick-and-mortar business or coupled with his subsequent stint teaching, Knauff's choosing to compose, arrange, and publish music was nothing startling as it was a natural ingredient of any music career at that time.

This chapter discusses the childhood of Joe Davis and his early career in the music industry. Davis had his first song, titled “Down Where the Old Road Turns,” published in 1914 and founded his own music publishing company, called Cathedral Music Co., the following year. After the war, he launched the Triangle Music Publishing Co., and by 1924 had become increasingly immersed in race recordings. The second half of the 1920s witnessed the growth of Davis’ artist placement and music publishing work.

This chapter examines the institution of chamber music publishing by looking closely at three internationally significant publishers. In all three cases, publishers sought to balance their production of “monumental” and “ephemeral” products to establish and maintain a reliable source of income and new musical material for themselves and, by extension, the musicians who relied upon them. Individually, the three firms represent different models with diverse priorities and business strategies: a small business established by a chamber music lover and copyright activist (Hofmeister); a larger firm that grew with the musical marketplace, changing hands at several points and evolving to address the needs of a growing public (Peters); and a midsize firm that specialized in practical music for private and public use (Schlesinger, later Lienau-Schlesinger). Together, these three companies provides a picture of the music business as it developed throughout the Romantic era.

This chapter discusses music publishing in nineteenth-century Dublin and the ways in which publishers reflected and, in some cases, played a key role in the country’s musical life. The arts, music, and theatre scene in Dublin flourished in the early nineteenth century. There were over sixty music businesses operating in a close network of streets within the heart of the city by the middle of the century; the upper echelons of Dublin society ensured that the amateur music market was kept afloat; and sellers and makers of home instruments such as harpsichords, pianos, and harps satisfied a growing market. Dublin’s appetite for music grew steadily as witnessed by the number of businesses that straddled the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, business was in sharp decline towards the end of the century. By then the competitively priced editions of the great London music publishers, such as Augener, Boosey & Co, and Hawkes & Son has come to dominate the Irish market.

This chapter examines a selection of art songs that won Harry T. Burleigh renown through their performance by an impressive roster of American and European opera and recital singers, making him one of the most respected American art song composers of the first quarter of the twentieth century. Burleigh's best-known art songs were published by G. Ricordi Music Publishing Company for more than three and a half decades. The first five years of G. Ricordi's publications (1914–1919) represent the majority of the strongest, most memorable, and most enduring of his art song oeuvre. In addition to a dozen or so art songs, more sacred songs appeared in the 1920s, especially from 1924. There were several songs written for historically black colleges such as Talladega College, several novelty songs, and a number of arrangements of folksongs and operatic choruses for choral ensembles. Two songs are especially notable: “Lovely Dark and Lonely One” (1935) and “In Christ There Is No East or West” (1940).

The Music Department, which remained in London until 1983, published sheet music, performance scores, hymnals, books, and educational materials, but was increasingly developing into a rights-management business. The chapter chronicles the department’s move to Oxford and subsequent streamlining—the list of titles in print was cut back and editorial control over music books transferred to New York. Under the directorship of Andrew Potter, the department sought out new composers and developed particular strengths in church, choral, and early music. Successful series included Oxford Choral Classics, Musica da Camera, and Carols for Choirs. The publication of bibles, prayer books, and hymnals is also considered in this chapter. Although historically a significant part of the OUP list, bible publishing had declined in relative importance, with management of the list moving from department to department. Important publications included the New English Bible, Revised Standard Version, and the BBC Songs of Praise.

This chapter is built around the intangible assets centered on the activity of the creative industries — book and music publishing, the performance and film industries. It focuses on copyright, to which it is almost wholly devoted because copyright is the regime that has been the most important for the longest time, and arguably remains the most important, to the creative industries. This chapter discusses the important factors considered in copyright protection: the subject matter, first ownership, and the scope of protection. Moreover, it explains public lending rights, publication rights, rights in performances, moral rights, artist's resale rights, and technological protection measures.

In November 1930, in association with Max Dreyfus, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart announced the formation of a new music publishing house, its name a melding of theirs: Rodart Music Publishing Company. Its purpose was to exploit the existing catalogue and publish their future songs: they needed the money. The establishing of Rodart turned out to be their farewell to Broadway for four years. Just a few days later they received a call from Mel Shauer, Hart's old camping and songwriting companion, who had gone out to California the preceding year and was now a producer at Paramount. Shauer had met Maurice Chevalier in Paris, and they had become very friendly. When Chevalier came to work in Hollywood, Shauer put up the suggestion that Rodgers and Hart be hired to write songs for him. The studio was not enthusiastic. His persistence paid off, however; Jesse Lasky decided to give them a chance.

This chapter uses the example of Tin Pan Alley to illustrate how the vicissitudes of the music business closely tracked the development of copyright law, sometimes following changes in the law, and sometimes driving them. Tin Pan Alley was geographically located on the half-block of West 28th Street lying between Broadway and Sixth Avenue in New York City. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, it was home to music publishers who controlled the production and distribution for popular music in its most tangible, merchantable form—printed sheet music—as well as the collection of all revenues and the calculation and disbursement of all royalties, which meant that all but the very few name-brand songwriters who became publishers themselves were at their mercy. However, by the mid-1920s, its stranglehold over the market for popular music was slipping, and the power struggle between songwriters and publishers shifted towards the direction of the songwriters.

This chapter focuses on Joe Davis’s retirement from being a full-time record executive in 1948. During this time, Davis sold his West 51st Street building and returned to Brill Building in Broadway. Though semi-retired, he occasionally ventured back into producing discs, and also continued acquiring and assigning songs from his earlier companies, which highlighted the complex nature of music publishing.