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Media Monopoly: Thomas Edison to Hillary Rosen

Posted by michael on from the looking-back dept.

An anonymous reader writes "George Ziemann has posted two excellent articles that explore the early days of the recording and music industry, how their attempts to monopolize their respective mediums in the past failed, and how their attempts to do so strangely mirror those presently being undertaken by contemporary media conglomerates to control digital distribution over the Net. Seems the two industries back at the turn of the century tried to pool their patents to block out competition like the RIAA and the big media companies today pool their copyrights. The first article "The Dawn of Recorded Music and the First Pirates" focuses on early collusion in the phonograph industry. The second "Music, Movies and Monopoly" on Thomas Edison's failed attempts to restrain fair trade in the two new media he gave commercial rise to."

8 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. phonograph industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did anyone else read that as Pornography Industry?

  2. Con Edison by h00pla · · Score: 5, Funny
    Gives new meaning to that term, doesn't it

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  3. Against the flow. Fair and balanced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Fox News Channel

    Enough said.

  4. A Convo by CptChipJew · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thomas Edison: Hillary, you need to lose weight seriously. My left ear is deaf and I can still hear the walls move when you walk.

    Hillary: }=(

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  5. Media Monopoly ... by BabyDave · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why don't we get Parker Brothers/Hasbro/whoever to make a "Media Monopoly(TM)" - instead of streets, you buy towns/cities, with houses representing newspapers, radio stations etc, and a hotel being a TV station or something. We could have Chance cards along the lines of "A new file-sharing app is launched. Lose $200,000,000" or "The American legal system develops collective insanity and passes the DMCA. Collect $5 billion", "The IRS finds out about the $10 billion stuffed down the back of the CEO's sofa, go directly to jail" etc etc.

    Come on guys! If we put our heads together, we could probably come up with decent analogies for the utilities, stations, free parking etc, then launch the game in a blaze of publicity, giving the profits (excessive optimism, probably ...) to the EFF or something.

  6. Turn of the century... by ksheka · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...What, like three years ago? Oh, you mean the *previous* century...

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  7. yeah by machine+of+god · · Score: 4, Funny

    Edison, that monopolistic bastard.

  8. Re:It's time they take notes on history. by JamesOfTheDesert · · Score: 4, Funny
    Those who don't learn by history are doomed to repeat it.

    Well, look on the bright side: repeating history will be forbidden unless you own the copyright on it.

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