WWBD!
 

WWBD? He'd hack, I think.

(NOTE: "WWBD" is much better than "WWMD," because aside from not making any sense with the quote, it has very political harmonics.)
 

If Mozart had patented the symphony then Beethoven would have kicked Mozart's ass in the Best Piano Concerto Competition™.

And then Stravinsky would have come along decades later and created the classical music version of Napster.
 

I'm just guessing here, but I believe he would pay royalties to the patent holder. Not that I'm defending software patents, but a symphony patent wouldn't have necessarily stopped symphony writing, it would merely have required the payment of royalties to the patent holder. Also since Mozart wrote his first Symphony in 1772, the patent would have expired before Beethoven wrote his first in 1800. This really isn't a very good argument against software patents.