![]() ![]() The patent holders finally decided to settle and form the Motion Pictures Patent Company, a cartel known as the Film Trust. But then another company, Biograph, entered the market, leading to almost a decade of patent litigation. He managed to procure Jenkins’s patent rights for $2500. ![]() The same year, Charles Francis Jenkins in the US invented a projector called the “Phantoscope.” Edison then entered the market with the “Vitascope,” basically the same as the Phantoscope except for the name. 4, he notes how in France one Louis Lumière invented a working camera and projector in 1895. Wu’s description of the evolution of Hollywood’s rise to dominance and the role state monopolies played in its structure is fascinating. Sometimes this protection has yielded reciprocal benefits, with the owner of an information network offering the state something valuable in return, like warrantless wiretaps. The government has conferred its blessing on monopolies in information industries with unusual frequency. Information monopolies can have very long half-lives.ĭeclining information monopolists often find a lifeline of last resort in the form of Uncle Sam. The Hollywood studios took effective control of American film in the 1930s, and even now, weakened versions of them remain in charge. ![]() And that’s when the rest of us suffer.ĪT&T’s near-absolute dominion over the telephone lasted from about 1914 until the 1984 breakup, all the while delaying the advent of lower prices and innovative technologies that new entrants would eventually bring. Facing decline, they do everything possible to stay in power. The problem is that dominant firms are like congressional incumbents and African dictators: They rarely give up even when they are clearly past their prime. As Wu observes (quoted here in a post by Cory Doctorow): One of the points of Wu’s book is how dominant information-based firms often resort to state help when their dominance is threatened. I noticed that it contains some illuminating discussions of the effect of patent and copyright on the development of the American movie industry. I have since downloaded and begun to read this fascinating book. My C4SIF post The Perils of Centralized Innovation concerned a fascinating excerpt from The Master Switch by Tim Wu (excerpts on scribd and google books). ![]()
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