By 1900, due to the Berne Convention (1886), translation rights had become established in Europe’s most essential book markets. However, authors usually had to grant and manage their rights without the help of agencies or publishers. Arthur Schnitzler and Stefan Zweig are good examples of this. International control over the work had to be asserted with great effort. This phase which ended in Germany in 1933 was shaped by the emergence of new media, such as film and radio, and the new licensing possibilities associated with them. In the age of media convergence, the newly established control of literary works had fallen into crisis. I illustrate this thesis by analyzing Bertolt Brecht’s media-theoretical writings and his practical attempts to exploit the Threepenny Opera.