Before WWI, the British record company His Master's Voice (HMV) had a contract with a German record company to distribute the HMV records in Germany, so HMV sent their masters to Germany and collected royalties from records made and sold in Germany from these masters. Come WWI in 1914, the German company decided these masters were now spoils of war, material confiscated from an enemy state, and they kept them. They used them to make and sell records in Germany and abroad after the war. In 1921, the OPERA DISC COMPANY (ODC) label was trademarked in the U.S. and records made in Germany from these confiscated masters were sold in the U.S. with this label. The British HMV and U.S. Victor record companies filed suit against the U.S. distributer of these records and in 1923, ODC was ordered to stop producing, distributing, and selling these records made with masters that still belonged to HMV and Victor by law in this country. The court also ordered ODC to turn over all these 'bootleg' records to Victor for destruction, which was done. It was a landmark case in copyright issues of songs.
ODC didn't really sell many records during the period they were in business and with as many as could be found being scooped up and destroyed by Victor Record Co, the remaining records are now very hard to find.
So here it is, something you'll probably not see again, a real live Opera Disc Company bootleg 1906 recording of Enrico Caruso pirated in 1914. Enjoy!
P.S. - Just a note that Sony now holds the copyright to this music and they are allowing it to play on YouTube worldwide except in Germany.
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