A term used in the US 1976 Copyright Act to refer to an audio only recording, whether on a record, cassette or whatever.
Copyright of non-dramatic music on a phonorecord is only protected for first use. Once it is recorded and distributed publicly, the copyright owner must license it to anyone else who wants to use it in a phonorecord. There is a statutory rate, a set fee per record distributed of a few cents, set by the Copyright Royalty Tribunal.