This was not so, because no one thought he was worth any money, but because it was difficult to trace where his music was performed, and it was difficult to transfer him money, if you happened to be far away.
It was only in the 19th century that better communications made it easier to trace where a composer's music was performed. Concerts are after all often announced in newspapers. And it became easier to send him the money he deserved through a more developed banking system.
We are now at the beginning of the 21st century, and the situation becomes increasingly more like what it was like in J. S. Bach's times.
If I buy a DVD with the musical Starlight Express, I can watch it as much as I want. Within shortly it will be easy to transfer the entire copy as a disk image to all my friends, who in their turn can transfer it to their friends and so on. It does not really matter if the DVD producer adds copy protection and digital signature. In the end, I can always point a video camera at the screen, just like my eyes and ears do, and record the whole thing. Soon that can be done extremely quickly at very high quality and you will get a file that weighs nothing, takes no space, and which you can send to all your friends. This makes it virtually impossible to control where a piece is performed and enjoyed.
The system is imploding. But then, who in his right mind would prefer to listen to Starlight Express rather than Das Wohltemperierte Klavier?
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