The dissemination history of music is shaped by a fundamental difference in comparison with the regular book trade, its authors and readers. Accurate quantification of the output of printed music during our period is impossible at present owing to inadequate bibliographical control, but one can be sure that whatever the level of supply, copies could be purchased only by persons with sufficient funds. Imprints, newspaper advertisements and publishers' catalogues were used by Humphries and Smith to augment the work of previous scholars and produce the standard list of music printers, publishers and engravers. The unique contribution of dissemination history lies in explaining what happens at the intersection of individuals, the copies of texts and the environments in which those copies are made and used. Understanding the complexities of these intersections requires gathering data not only on texts and those who issued them, but also on the individual buyers and users of those texts.