Mehmet Okonşar

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[from Wikipedia]

Anton (or Antonio) Diabelli was born in 1781 and has been an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer of Italian descent. He was best known in his time as a publisher, he is known today as the composer of a waltz on which Beethoven wrote his set of thirty-three Diabelli Variations op.120.

Diabelli moved to Vienna in 1803 and began teaching piano and guitar. He learned music publishing business starting as a proofreader for a publisher while continuing to compose.

The firm, Cappi and Diabelli became popular by arranging pieces so they could be played by amateurs. A master of promotion, Diabelli selected widely-accessible music such as famous opera tune arrangements, dance music, or hundreds of the latest popular comic theater songs

The firm soon established a reputation in more serious music circles by championing the works of Franz Schubert. It was Diabelli who first recognized the composer's potential, become the very first to publish Schubert's work with "Der Erlkonig" in 1821.

Diabelli's firm continued to publish Schubert's work until 1823 when an argument between Cappi and Schubert terminated their business. Following Schubert's early death in 1828, Diabelli purchased a large portion of the composer's massive musical estate from Schubert's brother Ferdinand. As Schubert's total compositions number nearly one thousand, Diabelli's firm was able to publish "new" Schubert works for more than 30 years after the composer's death.

He died in Vienna at the age of 76.
[end Wikipedia part]

Now figure out one highly successful composer and businessman Anton Diabelli composing something of a "hit" and a relatively obscure Beethoven composing one of his greatest piano works based i.e. "derivative" on that.

Now imagine today: can anyone compose, perform and publish a set of variations on a song by Gershwin or a Tango by Piazzolla. I mean without having to pay a small fortune to the copyright holders or infringing the law.

We all were told the fabulation of Copyright protecting the artist-creator. Is that true? Or is this a way to release our rights to someone else or some company, who will "take care" of our intellectual property. Sure, if we do so we will be able to get few pennies each time our music is performed. But what it costs really to the composer, to the society and to the world of Culture in general and broad sense of it?

The music we have composed and "given" to others to "protect it" is then removed from the free-circulation, it can not serve as one inspiring source to other composers, it will most probably refrain presenters to program it in concerts and festivals, as everyone knows, those presenters have a very hard time getting things into budget and therefore, the risk of presenting a more or less unknown composer gets near suicide when they will also have to pay non-negligible money for it.

People can not share it, you are not allowed to give a copy of it to a friend, you can not play it on your broadcast station, you can not reference it in your own work, you can not compose "on" it. With many other restrictions that seems to me a very high price to pay for getting a few pennies when and if the piece is performed somewhere. Moreover, the idea of paying the composer when the piece is performed is a non-sense too. Do you pay the electrician who have fixed your installation once, each time you switch on the current?

Then how the composers will make a living, one may ask. No composer (composing something else then purely commercial music) can live with royalties. So he/she has to find a way to make a living and that is not the point here. By thinking about ones own pocket money for one more moment, instead of the elevated social concerns stated above, one may also realize that allowing a wide and broad diffusion of one's own work will bring more jobs, commissioned compositions to its creator. Therefore it is far more profitable for the artist.
Artists should also know that there is plenty of licenses which can protect their works and allow people to share it as well. Copyleft and its various flavors, the GNU licenses, the various kinds of Creative Commons licenses are all professionally and expertly written and waiting for you to use them for your own work.
Adopting one of these for your work will not only profit to the society and cultural life of it but also to you as an artist. You will be able to reach people as you'd never thought possible, you will be better known in the field and you work will get to as many people as possible and isn't this the point in creating a work of art?