According to the article piracy of records began in the late 1930s and early 1940s when collectors of jazz music began to pirate records that they wanted but were not being reissued. Not much was done to stop these pirates because of the great expense and difficulty of legal action. Pirates were almost impossible to track down because of their frequent address and name changing. The introduction of long playing records aided in the expansion of pirating. These records were cheaper to produce and thus made for more profiting. In the early 1950s bootleg records were being distributed nationwide. One of the major pirating operations was Paradox industries which formed in New York under a man named Dante Bollettino. He marketed his records under the label "Jolly Roger." He basically took over the piracy market. He even had his own place of business in New York City.

    Record companies made many attempted to stop these pirates. In 1952 a case known as The Columbia Paradox case, the record production company Columbia and Louis Armstrong filed a lawsuit against the bootlegging company Paradox Industries and their president Dante Bollettino. Columbia was successful and the case led to the introduction and passing of the Bennett Bill which made record pirating a criminal offense.

     Many jazz addicts and critics said that pirating was not unethical. They said that pirates were just providing a desired work of art to a small audience because the major record companies are not willing to reissue the records. The record companies on the other hand said that some records were pirated even though they were easily obtainable which means that records were not just being pirated on the basis that they were not being reissued. They also said that the pirates were only trying to make easy money by taking works that others had payed full price for.

     This article gives information about early piracy in a form of media that may not have been thought of as being pirated. It helps to explain where piracy started in the music industry and how companies dealt with this piracy which is important to my topic of how piracy has evolved through different forms of music and what was done to combat the copyright infringement.