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Add to that, the "motion picture camera" and "motion picture projector".

FWIW, the advent of the global motion picture industry was the direct result of the violation of the patents and licences on these two devices.

To quote one summary of the events,

The Edison Film Manufacturing Company, the Biograph company, and the other Motion Picture Patents members ended their competitive feuding in favor of a cooperative system that provided industry domination. By pooling their interests, the member companies legally monopolized the business, and demanded licensing fees from all film producers, distributors, and exhibitors.

A January 1909 deadline was set for all companies to comply with the license. By February, unlicensed outlaws, who referred to themselves as independents protested the trust and carried on business without submitting to the Edison monopoly. In the summer of 1909 the independent movement was in full-swing, with producers and theater owners using illegal equipment and imported film stock to create their own underground market.

With the country experiencing a tremendous expansion in the number of nickelodeons, the Patents Company reacted to the independent movement by forming a strong-arm subsidiary known as the General Film Company to block the entry of non-licensed independents. With coercive tactics that have become legendary, General Film confiscated unlicensed equipment, discontinued product supply to theaters which showed unlicensed films, and effectively monopolized distribution with the acquisition of all U.S. film exchanges, except for the one owned by the independent William Fox who defied the Trust even after his license was revoked.

As the independent outlaws flourished, the Motion Picture Patents Company was also hit with antitrust charges by the United States government. In October 1915, the courts determined that the Patents Company and its General Film division acted as a monopoly in restraint of trade, and later ordered it disintegrated.

We forget that there was music (and movies!) before there was a massive industry to get rich off them.

The box office for a Chaplin short in 1915 was $100,000.

Roughly $2 million, adjusted for inflation.

During 1915, the Charlie Chaplin craze stormed the United States. Essanay vigorously promoted Chaplin's image, creating merchandise from photocards to books to toys, sheet music, fan cards,. All authorized merchandise stamped with Essanay name, and where possible the studios Indian-head logo. Star paraphernalia as an idea was not new, but the body of Chaplin merchandise was unlike anything seen in film before. Charles Chaplin

P.T. Barnum had perfected the system before 1850. Jenny Lind's net for her first concert tour in the states was $250,000. $3.6 tax-free millions, adjusted for inflation.

Shades of Edison and the Motion Picture Patents Company shenanigans which compelled the "independents" to up sticks and move out to Hollywood so they could make pictures

It's possible, but I would also wonder why Big Media wouldn't have attempted it. They certainly have the resources, and it's not like they like having their livelihood at the mercy of the self-restraint of a public who are increasingly despising them. If they can find a way to wean themselves off their business model, without taking huge hits to their profitability, I'm sure they would at least investigate it.

Lack of imagination, not wanting to open the door for smaller players to enter, not wanting new artists to bypass them entirely, take your pick.

You now seem to be arguing that the courts should support the MOST profitable business model, rather than just make sure that there is A profitable business model.

Besides, there's no reason why others can't use those systems. As I pointed out before, the existence of copyright does not mandate its use. You can compete with these other business models on even terms. See whether there is a drop in quality and/or quantity (as I would predict) with adopting these older business models, and if there is, see whether people prefer the freedom to the quantity/quality.

There's plenty of reason. The *AA have saturated the channels. Overcoming an old boy network requires large amounts of graft which will not be feasible to a small player in a big market.

That sounds interesting. Do you have a link regarding this?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0480674/bio http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/edison_trust.htm http://books.google.com/books?id=Oe07v8PfSvsC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=hollywood+evade+edison&source=bl&ots=PorWHx-5J_&sig=3kcNMzzNoMaGApWxACcQeBOltms&hl=en&ei=FuqHS_aeLI21tgfViMmxDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CCMQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=hollywood%20evade%20edison&f=false Search "founding of hollywood" for many many more.

You should read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting as well. It shows why one should be quite wary when any member of the *AA speaks of profits and losses.

Well, it's not authoritative (I'm at work and don't have time to dig up primary sources), but here's an overview of what happened:

Studios flee to Hollywood[1]

In the early 1900s, filmmakers began moving to the Los Angeles area to get away from the strict rules imposed by Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey. Since most of the moviemaking patents were owned by Edison, independent filmmakers were often sued by Edison to stop their productions.

To escape his control, and because of the ideal weather conditions and varied terrain, moviemakers began to arrive in Los Angeles to make their films. If agents from Edison's company came out west to find and stop these filmmakers, adequate notice allowed for a quick escape to Mexico.

Working without disturbance from Edison, the Biograph Company moved west with actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and others, to make their films. After beginning filming in Los Angeles, the company decided to explore the neighboring area and stumbled across Hollywood.

Biograph made the first film in Hollywood, entitled In Old California. After hearing of Biograph's praise of the area, other filmmakers headed west to set up shop.

The first motion picture studio was built in 1919, in nearby Edendale, just east of Hollywood, by Selig Polyscope Company, and the first one built in Hollywood was founded by filmmaker David Horsley's general manager Al Christie in 1911, in an old building on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. Movie studios began to crop up all over Hollywood after Christie's appearance, including ones for Cecil B. DeMille in 1913, the Charlie Chaplin Studio in 1917, and many others.

[1]: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3871.html
[2]: http://webpages.dcu.ie/~flynnr/hollywood_history_1891_-_1917.htm (interesting timeline)
[3]: http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/edison_trust.htm (details on Edison's monopoly, which Hollywood broke)

Primary sources would take longer than I have to dig up, but you get the idea.

My serious and optimistic view: Soon we will see computing interoperability and software development flourish and we will look back upon the MS dominant time where they were holding free software innovation and interoperability back as an annoying historic paranthesis.

The next important step in the world of computing now is to Stop software patents! To achieve the similar stimulance to software development as when the movie industry moved to California to avoid the film patents that were holding the film industry back on the east coast.

Support FFII and EFF

I guess noone is seriously interested in OOXML any more, but I collected some arguments about our company's opinions about OOXML recently.

If you are interested in reading people's blogs, here is mine about SCO finally dead! MS next?

Close.. they were actually avoiding patents from Edison's Film Manufacturing Company. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_ States#Rise_of_Hollywood

this threatens US based FOSS, not FOSS in general.

If america manages to succeed in it's apparent crusade to heavily restrict all forms of software development (not just FOSS), then the US will find itself rendered irrelevent by developers in third world countries, India, africa, China, and good old Blighty (where I reside), to name but a few.
Such developers, myself included, will just carry on, and ignore the rantings of the US while they paint themselves into a corner.

Sometimes I wonder if the parties on both sides of the Patent dispute in america remember their history lessons. Any restrictive system which seeks to limit the exploration of idea's invariably results in new avenues of expression being founded.

Heck, how do you think Hollywood got started? They were over in California to get away from a restrictive patenting system, not because of the weather.

See this reference: http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/edison_trust. htm

I really hope that the US gets it's act together.

Perhaps the only thing that will stop it will be the software equivilent of Sputnik flying overhead and beeping. I have no idea what that might be.

Disney is a supertanker of a company and it'll take more than a seat on the board or even being nominally in charge of animation to turn it around from the pile of crap it has become.

Kinda reminds of Michael Dell saying (about Apple) "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders"

I think if anyone can turn around disney, then Lasseter with Steve Jobs backing will be the ones to do it.

What I think we should be more worried about is the creation of the most vertically integrated entertainment duopoly since paramount case of 1948 broke up the old vertical monopolists.

I mean we're going to have one guy (Jobs) essentially controlling two companies that will between them produce the content, the distribution network, the playback codec and the playback device.

The potential for abuse is frightening

The movie studios *were* barred from owning theaters due to the 50's Paramont case, but relaxed restrictions in the 80's have allowed them once more to tighten their grip. See here for more

Wow. I did not know that. google helped me find a few details about the "Motion Picture Patent Company" and its influence on the establishment of the Hollywood film industry. Fascinating stuff that parallels many modern situations with respect to patents and the media industries.

There is an site about the details of the MPAA's ancestors at Hollywood Renegades Archive. BTW, what if the whole Open Source movement is 22nd century version of M$? Maybe the M$-borg collective is right after all. :)

This thread is totally on the money on Edison. There's an ironic twist to the Edison story that bears interestingly in this discussion.

It seems that Edison owned several patents on the technology behind filmmaking, and exacted brutal licensing on virtually every aspect of the industry. The pressure was so unreasonable that the burgeoning movie industry of the early 20th century was forced out of what was then the center of filmmaking - the east coast. They needed a place to shoot their pirate criminal outlaw movies that was far away from Edison and his patent police. Also important was that they be close to the Mexican border so that they could take their copyright criminal tools out of the country should Edison's goons show up.

The result? Hollywood, CA. A litle fact I like to remember when they hurl hypocrisy about IP criminals.

The early history of Hollywood is even more interesting.

The first motion picture studios were in New York City, but they moved out to California to avoid paying licensing fees to Edison for his patents. They then avoided his lawsuits by going to
Mexico until the heat was off. (1)

Then in the late thirties antitrust lawsuits were attempted against the big eight leading to a consent decree between the studios and the justice dept. (we all know how effective those are ;>) promising to limit some monopolistic practices. The independants (at that time) used their name recognition (Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Samuel Goldwyn, Mary Pickford, Orson Welles) to take their case to the people recruiting other well known names to promote their cause - Howard Hughes, Hal Roach, Leo McCarey, Sol Lesser, James Cagney, Bing Crosby, John Huston, Preston Sturges, Sam Spiegel, and Stanley Kramer.

In 1948 a supreme court decision against the big eight for conspiracy forced them to sell their theater holdings and stop certain monopolistic practices such as block booking (requiring a theater to buy all the films they needed in a single package, hmm sounds a little like bundling).

The studio system and its opposition which forced the dissolution then both faded away leading to the rise of new monopoly structure.

(2)

The interesting thing is that if the MPAA built their own movie-playing hardware and only released titles that played on that machine, they'd likely be ruled a vertical monopoly as they were when they owned the theaters.

But if they accomplish the same thing via legislation, it's perfectly legal. Go figure.

For a summary of the history of the Paramount et al. antitrust case, try this page