At the start of the 20th century—just as today—recording companies, wholesalers, and retailers suffered heavy losses not only from piracy but also from good old-fashioned theft. Most of these cases stayed within the walls of the companies, but every now and then, thanks to investigative journalists, some stories became public knowledge.

Ninety years ago, the St. Petersburg District Court heard a case of systematic theft from the warehouse of the Gramophone Company. On the defendants’ bench sat merchant Nikolai Kasatkin, his wife Pelageya, peasants Anton and Yegor Porokhov, Grigory Abrosimov, and several others. The investigation revealed that Kasatkin, the owner of a gramophone shop on Nikolaevskaya Street, had been running an organized ring that included warehouse employees, the building’s doorman, janitors, and other staff. In total, 12 people were charged.

At first, only Abrosimov and the Porokhov brothers admitted guilt. The rest denied everything, but under the weight of the evidence, they eventually confessed. The indictment concluded that:

“…in less than six months, they had stolen records worth more than 10,000 rubles.”

At the time, that was an enormous sum. Familiar with how wholesale distribution from the warehouse worked, the thieves used forged documents and fake guarantee letters. The stolen records were sold in broad daylight through Kasatkin’s store, with the profits pocketed by the gang.

The court sentenced ringleader Nikolai Kasatkin to three years in prison, while the others received terms ranging from two years to one year.

Such cases were far from rare. Around the same time, at the A. Burchard Trading House in St. Petersburg, records began to disappear systematically—always the most popular titles: Shalyapin, Sobinov, Nezhdanova, and others from the Gramophone catalog. When the police got involved, the culprit turned out to be a shop assistant whose boundless love for the stars of the Russian stage earned him a trip to prison.

In another case, a Moscow firm reported the theft of records worth 6,000 rubles in just a short time. That case, however, was quietly buried—management feared the scandal would damage their reputation.

No Trick, No Record; No Record, No Sale

At the start of the 20th century, most recordings of Russian artists were handled by German companies whose representatives often had little understanding of the local music scene—or of how much to actually pay Russian stars. Fees were the invisible force that drove some artists to compromise their principles and others to do whatever it took to get the best deal possible. Many German firms ended up overpaying dramatically, thanks to the involvement of shady middlemen posing as “agents.”

Typically, two people would arrive in Russia to organize the sessions: a technician and a company representative. Neither spoke a word of Russian—unless you count one knowing the word “beer” and the other “coachman.” Waiting for them at the station was always a slick broker who had somehow struck a deal with the German company.

Back in Berlin, executives believed wild rumors that Russian artists demanded astronomical fees and that recording 100–120 tracks would cost at least 15,000 marks. The broker, speaking broken German, would swear that thanks to his “connections,” he could secure the top stars of the capital for that amount, handling all the artist payments himself. He only asked for a “modest commission” for his efforts.

The list of names he presented dazzled the Germans—supposedly the biggest celebrities in Russia, “making Mazini and Battistini look like nobodies.” But when the sessions began, those “stars” often turned out to be washed-up operetta chorus singers, howling like wolves and performing under borrowed stage names. The “prima donnas,” carefully recommended by the “experienced agent,” were usually either half-trained amateurs or café chanteuses with no talent at all.

At one point, the broker pushed a popular comedian and a “gypsy” singer—“gypsy” only in the sense that her uncle had once lived near the Romani quarter. The Germans were thrilled with the bargain: familiar names at rock-bottom prices.

The truth came out the next day. During a session, an argument broke out between the broker and one of the artists over money. It turned out the performer was being paid three times less than the broker had reported. The German representative, furious, called in a translator and questioned the other artists. That’s when the full scheme was revealed: the entire 100-track session had cost 4,500 rubles, not 15,000 marks. Some performers were getting 60, 30, or 25 rublesper track, but most of the street singers, accordion players, and other “folk entertainers” were paid just 5–6 rubles per number.

When the Germans realized the recording had cost a fraction of what they’d been told, their anger was explosive. The hotel descended into chaos, with shouting loud enough to summon the staff and eventually the police. The furious company reps attacked the broker—joined by local artists who seized the chance to deliver a little “street justice.” The so-called folk performers, unsurprisingly, showed the greatest enthusiasm for the brawl.

This was the gritty reality of the music business in Russia at the dawn of the recording era.

Vintage Soviet-era gramophone records advertisement, showcasing iconic labels and typography from early 20th-century Russia.

Pirated disc’s sleeve

The Duped Nightingale and the Counterfeit Stars

In the spring of 1911, a well-dressed man walked into a Moscow gramophone shop and asked for two records of nightingale trills recorded by the Gramophone Company. When the clerk had wrapped the records and asked for payment—2 rubles 25 kopecks each—the bird-song enthusiast refused to pay, insisting the advertised price had been 2 rubles even.

“The price went up,” the salesgirl explained, “because Gramophone now pays royalties.”

“Royalties? To whom—the nightingale?!” snapped the witty customer.

Flustered, the clerk sold him the discs at the old price.

This amusing exchange happened in March 1911, right after the enactment of Russia’s first Copyright Law, which for the first time included terms like phonograph, gramophone, and record. The law also formally recognized the rights not only of composers but of performers and record manufacturers. But pirates were quick to find loopholes, continuing to steal music with near-total impunity.

Counterfeiting the Stars

Hungry for famous names, the less scrupulous record manufacturers didn’t hesitate to copy the most expensive and popular records outright. They brazenly cloned a 6-ruble Chaliapin record and sold it for 1 ruble—a price even the poorest music fan could afford.

These entrepreneurs knew full well they risked lawsuits and criminal charges, but the lure of easy money always outweighed any concern for the rights of artists or publishers—or for the courts’ judgment.

Soon they found a “safer” trick, one that was technically legal but equally deceitful:

In a country as vast as Russia, with countless provincial singers and cabaret performers, it wasn’t hard to find a name twin for a Sobinov, a Mikhailova, or a Nezhdanova. These “shadow stars” were all too happy to sell the illusion of famefor a few rubles, while the manufacturers raked in the profits.

When exact matches couldn’t be found, companies settled for similar names, banking on customers not noticing. It was cynical but clever, and nearly impossible to fight in court: after all, you couldn’t ban a legitimate but obscure “Mikhailova” from releasing a record just because she shared a name with a more famous singer.

A Case in Point: Stella of Warsaw

The Warsaw-based Stella label became infamous for this practice. They would hire baritone Kelter for 6 rubles to record 30 tracks in a single session. Those tracks would then be marketed under a whole range of aliases:

To the unsuspecting public, these records looked like a goldmine of star performances. In reality, they were cheap knock-offs—and yet they sold by the thousands.

Pirate Variety

The ingenuity of Russian music pirates knew no bounds. As soon as legitimate record producers united to form the “League of Honest Trade” and began fighting back against illegal copying, the pirates struck back with a new trick — mass-producing records under “new” brand names.

The scheme was simple. Take a hit recording from the Zonophone label, copy it almost perfectly, and change just one letter in the logo. What had said “Zonophone” now read “Zomophone.” Customers, accustomed to Zonophone’s dark green label and solid reputation, often didn’t notice the slight difference until they got home and heard the awful sound quality. By then it was too late. And because the Russian alphabet has plenty of letters to play with, soon the market was flooded with “Zolophones” and other clever knockoffs — a trick not unlike the “Panisonic” and “Sannyo” gadgets that filled Russian markets in the 1990s.

The popular Kyiv label Ekstrafon, which released records under the name “Artistotypia,” faced the same fate. Their best recordings began reappearing under the logos “Extrofon” and “Aristotypia.”

While some pirates built their brands by copying existing labels, others invented entirely new “companies.” Suddenly, Russian shops were selling records from Celesten Record, Cantophon, and Excelsior — all of which simply reissued tracks lifted wholesale from legitimate catalogs. Before long, piracy even became an international operation.

Foreign Pirates and “Imperial Record”

Foreign piracy rings didn’t last long. In 1909, the Gramophone Company issued a notice to its customers:

“Among the many counterfeiters of our records, one German factory has appeared, taking orders from Russia and selling records under the name ‘Diva.’ Our lawyers have successfully halted production for export to Russia, under threat of a 15,000-mark fine and six months’ imprisonment for the responsible parties.”

But in Russia, nothing changed.

One of the most bizarre cases involved the rise of the Imperial Record brand. It started when the Warsaw-based company Sirenа rejected a massive batch of defective pressings and sold them off at a symbolic price. Against the advice of technical director Karl Sandal, who suspected trouble, the records were snapped up by opportunistic resellers. Soon, those very discs reappeared across the country with their original Sirenа labels covered by new ones reading “Imperial Record.”

From Pirates to Legitimate Players

Many Russian record companies that later became respected brands started their careers in piracy. The company Intonamade all of its early capital by selling pirate editions before eventually going legitimate under the Sirenа label.

There were even cases of pirates pirating other pirates. Agents of the well-known St. Petersburg company Tonophonwere stunned to find records in their distributors’ shops labeled “Tornophon” — perfect copies of Tonophon’s own best-selling knockoffs, which themselves had been stolen from the Gramophone Company in the first place.

Odessa: The Pirate Capital

Alongside Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw, Odessa became a capital of underground music piracy. One of the most colorful operations was Polyaphon, named after its founder, Mr. Polyakin. Under his “fatherly guidance,” the family’s backyard “factory” churned out pirated records, while his sons, acting as “distributors,” delivered the goods across the region under the trade name “Polyakin and Sons.”

Their labels were infamous for hilarious spelling mistakes and typos, but the records still sold briskly. Efforts by cheated artists and legitimate record companies to shut down Polyakin’s operation always failed — the elder Polyakin had cozy ties with the local police and city officials, who happily looked the other way.

A century later, the legacy of Polyakin and his ilk lives on. Modern-day “heirs” of those early pirates are still running the same shady business, just with newer technology.

Alexander Tikhonov, from the book “The Operation They Called Counterfeit”

Source