From the Financial Times: (and you should buy a subscription)

Piracy is a problem as old as the music industWilliam Schwenck Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan - The Pirates of Penzance - (Sheet music)ry itself. In Victorian times, it was illicitly copied sheet music that was the avowed enemy of the artist, and the operetta team Gilbert and Sullivan paid toughs to go round London pubs smashing up pianos with sledge hammers whenever they found bootlegged scores.

 

 

Gilbert and Sullivan’s innovative business model
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