[Owen]

Wolfgang Mozart never collected a penny of royalties or copyright based income in his life.

[discostu]

Because the technology of the time didn't allow for mass distribution of his work. Original copyright laws didn't apply to paintings because at the time they could only be "copied" by hand and it was only a problem if you tried to pass your copy off as the original which was fraud, then came lithography and the copyright laws had to be expanded.