Media Monopoly: Thomas Edison to Hillary Rosen

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."

Comments

Starr-Gennett

[jwilcox154]

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.

Because of those patents, Starr-Gennett "along with several other companies" were sued in the early Nineteen-Twenties, which the the American Graphophone Company (Columbia) and the Victor Talking Machine Co. Lost.

The Second Circuit Court of appeals held the patent void for lack of invention and for abandonment.

Not only did the lawsuit effectively end the majors' monopolization of lateral recording, it formed a bond between the smaller companies which had joined the Gennetts in the legal battle. Leasing arrangements between the companies followed, eventually involving hundreds of masters.

Edison is like Ogg Vorbis

[Enrico Pulatzo]

His tech was better fidelity, less backing by popular artists, and less accepted by the public. The book "The Invisible Computer" really does a good job of telling Edison's story, I highly suggest you read it.

Edison's story teaches me that in emerging technology, one must establish a monopoly if there is to be any stability in future markets. If one standard is not a clear winner, the consumer is the clear loser. Consumers will sacrifice quality for market saturation every time.

Re:Edison is like Ogg Vorbis

[Amiga Trombone]

His tech was better fidelity, less backing by popular artists, and less accepted by the public. The book "The Invisible Computer" really does a good job of telling Edison's story, I highly suggest you read it.

Well, that wasn't all there is to the story. Actually, the "phonograph wars" were in some way comparable to the PC vs Mac wars.

Edison == proprietary, Victor, Columbia, etc, == open standard.

It is true that Edison's Amberol cylinders and Diamond Disks had better sound quality than the competing flat discs produced by Victor, Columbia, etc.

Two problems; first, Edison's formats were proprietary, and as noted, Edison was vigorous in enforcing his patents. The only media available was from the Edison Co., and every recording they issued was subject to the personal approval of Edison himself, so consumers were limited to what was available by Edison's personal tastes,as opposed to the plethora of music available to owners of Victor, Columbia, Zonophone, etc. phonographs (technichly gramaphones - a phonograph is a cylinder machine). Also there were a number of 3rd party recording companies that produced records for the gramaphone format that weren't available for the Edison machines. Second, the cylinder format was inconvenient to use, and only allowed for one song to be recorded per record. The plaster core of the Amberol cylinders had a tendancy to swell, making them difficult to mount properly on the mandrel of the phonograph.

While the technical issues were addressed by the Diamond Disk format, by that time the flat disk (Berliner format) had become the standard, and also, the Diamond Disk was again a proprietary format, available only from Edison.

There was a reason Edison wasn't as well accepted by popular artists, too. He was a cheapskate. In those days, recording artists weren't paid by royalties, they were paid only for their performance for the recording session. After 1912, rather than pay the artists to record both a version for cylinders and Diamond Disks, Edison would pay the artist only for recording the Diamond Disk master, and then record the cylinder masters from the Diamond Disk. This also accounted for the reduction of quality in cylinder recordings after 1912.