[Editor’s note: This article is adapted from American Record Labels and Companies (1891–1943), by Allan Sutton & Kurt Nauck
and republished from Mainspring Press with the express permission of Allan Sutton.]
Record piracy—so often in the news lately with the rise of illegal downloading—has a long tradition in the United States. Piracy
of the easily duplicated wax cylinder was a common problem in the 1890s. The shellac disc record required considerably more expertise
and equipment to pirate, but by the late 1890s the basic technology was well known.
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Zon-o-Phone disc pirated from Berliner 0967, original recorded by the
Metropolitan Orchestra, February 15, 1900. Note the scratches left in the
master from buffing out Berliner’s original markings.
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The First Disc Record Pirates
The earliest documented disc piracy on a commercial scale seems to have been carried out by the Universal Talking Machine Company,
makers of the Zon-o-Phone machine. Universal’s marketing arm, the National Gramophone Company, had originally sold Berliner products.
Through a complex chain of events well beyond the scope of this article, that supply source had been severed at the end of 1897. Lacking
discs for its machines, Universal hired John C. English to set up a studio in mid-1899, but in the meantime it had begin to issue
unbranded seven-inch discs whose resemblance to Berliner’s was not coincidental. The Universal engineers simply electroplated commercial
Berliner pressings and buffed out all of Berliner’s markings, except the titles and catalog numbers. The practice seems to have ended in
early 1900, by which time Universal was producing its own Zon-o-Phone masters successfully.
In 1902 Albert T. Armstrong introduced the American Vitaphone Record. Armstrong had been accused of record piracy as early as September 1899,
in conjunction with his American Talking Machine Company, although it now appears that some of American’s red discs may have been original
recordings. The Vitaphones, however, were clearly pirated from seven-inch Victor discs, in some cases still showing Victor’s markings in the
inner band. Victor eventually sued Armstrong in October 1904 (Victor Talking Machine Co. v. Armstrong et al., 132 F. 11), introducing as
evidence a Vitaphone disc pirated from Victor A-960. Judge Lacombe granted a preliminary injunction against Armstrong, but he died several months later.
The Continental Record Company
A later pirate, the Continental Record Company, placed its manufacturing operation offshore. Continental was one in a long line of shady
ventures launched by Winant Van Zant Pearce Bradley, founder of two Toledo-based ventures (Ohio Talking Machine Co. and Talk-o-Phone Co.)
that infringed the basic patents on lateral disc records and phonographs.
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Continental disc pirated from a Fonotipia pressing. The mechanical-feed
sticker placed on the reverse side was a standard Bradley ploy to skirt
the Berliner patent on lateral recording.
(Courtesy of Kurt Nauck)
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Bradley obtained commercial pressings of Victor and Fonotipia recordings by operatic celebrities and had them electroplated to produce
stampers from which the original catalog numbers were effaced. The resulting masters were then shipped to an undisclosed foreign location
for export back to the United States, where they were sold under the Continental label at approximately half the price of the records
from which they were pirated.
Labels and sales literature made at least an attempt at disclosure, openly acknowledging that each disc was a "duplicate of an original record."
Court records suggest that Bradley saw this disclaimer as a legal protection rather than an admission of guilt. Bradley also reverted to
Leeds & Catlin’s unsuccessful dodge to avoid infringing Victor’s Berliner patent, claiming that the records were sold for use only on mechanical-feed machines.
Victor, Columbia, and Fonotipia Ltd. (Fonotipia’s London-based distributor) brought suit against Bradley in August 1909
(Fonotipia Limited et al. v. Bradley, 171 F. 951; Victor Talking Machine Co. v. Bradley, 171 F. 951). At the trial, Bradley was represented
by Waldo G. Morse, the same attorney who had unsuccessfully defended Bradley’s Talk-O-Phone Company and its Leeds & Catlin affiliate against
patent infringement charges. It was proven conclusively that Bradley had produced his discs by electroplating commercial pressings.
Despite Bradley’s claims that the pirated records were equal in quality to the originals, examination of the products at the trial
revealed, in Judge Chatfield’s words, that the Continental pressings did not show "the use of as good material in the discs, nor as much
durability and freedom from warping as those of the complainants, and a comparison shows in many instances a dulling or far away effect."
Chatfield rejected Morse’s contention that Victor’s and Columbia’s licensing arrangements and price controls constituted restraint of trade.
Ruling that Bradley’s operation amounted to unfair competition, he granted an injunction.
Investigation revealed that Continental had no office or plant, its only verifiable employee being an attorney in New Baltimore, New York.
Bradley himself claimed to have no financial stake in the company, acting only as a sales agent, although he was unable to produce witnesses
to that effect. The company’s billing address at 147 West 35th Street, New York, was discovered to be occupied by an unrelated storage company.
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Two Victor pirates pressed in John Fletcher’s Olympic plant in
early 1920. The Pan American specimen was plated from a commercial pressing and
shows effaced Victor markings.
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The John Fletcher Pirates
John Fletcher pressed at least two labels in his Olympic Disc Record Corporation plant during the early 1920s—Symphony Concert and
Pan American—using pirated originals. Both brands show Fletcher’s characteristic catalog numbering systems, label typography, and sunken
rings around the spindle hole, but stampers may have come from different sources.
Symphony Concert was Fletcher’s own brand, and material from his Olympic label was used on the ten-inch series. The twelve-inch series,
however, was drawn from Victor Red Seal material by Enrico Caruso and other celebrities. The source of these pressings remains open
to question. The stampers do not appear to be replatings, and may have been obtained from Deutsche Grammophon/Polyphonwerke in Germany,
which licensed pre-World War I Victor material in its possession to Opera Disc and other labels in the early 1920s.
Pan American was clearly pressed from masters made by replating commercial pressings, sometimes none too neatly. Victor’s catalog and
take numbers are still faintly visible in most pressings, along with light scratches, dust specks, and occasionally even strands of hair
left on the commercial pressings prior to plating. The addition of a heavy, raised run-out groove is indicative of a European master source,
but where and how these pressings were marketed remains a mystery.
