Illegal Records

Illegal Records is a record label founded by Miles Copeland III with his younger brother Stewart Copeland and the manager of The Police, Paul Mulligan in 1977. The label released The Police's debut single, Fall Out. Copeland went on to sign more artists and start several other indie sublabels including Deptford Fun City Records, Step-Forward Records and Total Noise Records. He also launched the foreign divisions, France & Netherlands, that released some of the same titles with different catalog numbers, and some exclusive titles as well. In 1979, after Copeland started I.R.S. Records, Illegal became its distributor in UK & Europe. It continued its operations until 1988, when it merged its operations with I.R.S.