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I meet up with a group of friends including Easy Beat  usually once a week and one of the things we have debated about is the fickle bussiness of copyright and publishing music. I thought I better look into it more.         The origin of copyright law began with efforts by the church and governments to regulate and control the output of printers. I have learnt that many artist have received a pittance in royalties simply  because they signed away their copyright.  This is called assigning your copyright to a third party. Music must be one of the most over-hyped and unregulated industry of all time. The great publishing houses of the 1940's were active in one thing exploitation of the work of songwriters who wrote to order. to meet the demands of popular singers and Broadway musicals of the big band era. Many songwriter were on salaries. Writers started to realise the  enormous capacity of  their work to mesmerise a nation and catapult  the recording artist to fame.
A movement began towards songwriters sharing the copywrite royalties. Why not publish yourself? The better known companies have the ability to  market and make more money from your writing than you can do yourself. Another advantage of a big label or music publisher is they will collect- vigorously- every cent owed to you. So how does it work for the publisher or record company?  The copyright payment is deducted  immediately from the  amount  paid by the retailer or what business buys your song. It is then paid to the publisher- the owner of the copyright or held in a seperate account until claimed by the rightful owner.
What you get depends on what your percentage agreement is with your publisher. Anyone can be a publisher. You just need an address a computer and a standard contract. and the ability to convince the writer it is a good idea for you to exploit their work for the life of the copyright. Which now also means up to after fifty years after the death of the writer. Many songwriters have been taken to the cleaners through signing bad contracts,

When the person on the street buy's 'someone else's  music it does not provide the rights to use this music in a commercial or public setting. Music is sold for private/domestic use, so any use of this music by a business or organisation is a public performance that requires licensing. The same rule applies whether you have purchased a physical CD, bought a digital download or stream music through a subscription service. 
Modern day  International copyright can be traced back to the  British Statute of Anne 1710.. Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books. Copyright now covers a wide range of works, including maps, performances, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures and computer programes..
Today national copyright laws have been standardised to some extent through international and regional agreements such as the Berne Convention and the European copyright directives. Although there are consistencies among nations' copyright laws, each jurisdiction has separate and distinct laws and regulations about copyright. Some jurisdictions also recognize moral rights of creators, such as the right to be credited for the work.