During the sixteenth century, increasing quantities of printed music appeared in German-speaking lands under the protection of a privilege. Such privileges were issued by the Holy Roman Emperor (or later, the Elector of Saxony), granting booksellers or authors an exclusive right for a limited period to publish specific books. Some scholars, notably Hansjörg Pohlmann, have interpreted these legal documents as an early manifestation of copyright, indicating an increased awareness of individual creativity.
This paper is based on a systematic search of the Vienna and Dresden archives for letters and other documentation relating to privileges for printed music. I reconstruct the process involved in applying for a privilege, analyse the rhetoric used to justify these legal instruments, and examine legal cases when composers clashed with unauthorised publishers of their music. Contrary to Pohlmann, I suggest that privileges were granted not to protect intellectual property but to incentivise publications that served the common good, and to protect the financial investment made in an edition. As the product of a ritualistic negotiation between princely bureaucracy and the publisher or author, privileges added value and authority to the printed book.
