One man's 78rpm music is another man's 45rpm junk.

Not all's fair in love and war or in the 45 record business. Some executives at major labels, unhappy with their perceived lack of respect or compensation, took it upon themselves to form their own label and hijack as many master discs of the artists that they'd signed up while at the major label. There were lax infringement laws regarding trademark and proprietary rights at the beginning of the decade, so the new 'junk' label owners could get away with openly pressing new 45rpm records of older 78rpm releases with impunity. These same junk label operators misappropriated music from overseas and packaged it as their own and were not challenged for failing to pay fees or royalties, thereby making themselves a lot of money. These early days of the 45 opened the door to many more operators who began making covers of current popular songs as another solid revenue stream. They enticed unwitting teenage buyers to grab these cover records without first playing them, so as to hide the records poor quality and lousy musical imitations. It all does have a better ending because a few legitimate artists got their feet in the door recording as an unnamed artist on some of those poor quality imitations and they are now among some of the most sought after collector 45s today. So in more than one way, one man's junk has become another's sweet music on 45.