The United States, at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century, was in the midst of an unprecedented economic boom.
Accompanying this was the rapid rise of a fabulously wealthy class, which firmly occupied center stage in this young nation.
Names like John D.
Rockefeller, the Oil King; Andrew Carnegie, the Steel King; the railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, who though deceased was still remembered; and the financial titan J.P.
Morgan—these thunderous names were almost synonymous with the American economy of the time.
And it wasn’t just them.
On this land dubbed the ‘Land of Opportunity,’ countless others were eagerly seeking their own fortunes.
Money might not be the most important thing in the world.
But at least in this empire of gold, the answer was yes.
Even Thomas Edison, hailed as ‘The Wizard of Menlo Park,’ was no exception.
More money, continuous funding, was needed to sustain the operation of his vast invention empire and keep the light of his genius shining.
But one cannot succeed forever; market and technological changes are merciless.
‘Damn that Morgan!’
Edison, who had once almost completely controlled the lifeline of America’s power supply with his DC system, saw the glory of his commercial empire begin to waver by the 1890s.
Edison, steadfast in DC technology, engaged in a direct confrontation with the Westinghouse Electric Company under George Westinghouse, which vigorously promoted AC.
That brutal duel of technology and capital, later known as the ‘War of the Currents,’ ultimately ended in a one-sided defeat for Edison.
AC, with its advantages of lower cost and higher efficiency in long-distance power transmission, became the choice of the era, while Edison’s DC system, on which he had staked his reputation, was gradually marginalized by the market.
J.P.
Morgan, a key investor in Edison General Electric, naturally went with the flow, beginning to slowly strip the inventor obsessed with DC from the company’s core of power.
Soon, Edison would likely lose control over ‘Edison General Electric,’ the company he had poured his all into, practically staking his soul to build.
But he did not collapse because of this.
After all, it was through countless failures and mockeries that he had climbed from being a newsboy and telegraph operator to his current position.
Thomas Edison himself was the very symbol of the American-style self-made man who climbed from the bottom rungs of society.
If anyone mocked him for this setback, in Edison’s view, they were merely losers afraid of challenges.
To stand up again and restore his prestige, Edison urgently began searching for a new breakthrough.
And just then, a novel thing called ‘Film’ caught his eye.
In fact, his company had already invented and improved the Kinetoscope and Film projectors, even securing related patents, but he himself had not previously shown much interest in these ‘moving pictures.’
Of course, those primitive one-minute images were enough to amaze many paying viewers, but to Edison, who was accustomed to grand visions and pursued economies of scale, they were insignificant trifles not worth mentioning.
However, a few years later, several Films arriving from across the Atlantic in Europe completely overturned his view.
‘This is it!’
Works like ‘a trip to the moon’ and ‘vienna encounter,’ coming from Austria and France, were nothing short of revolutionary in his eyes.
Those moving images, which he had previously seen as lacking color and seemingly little meaning, now merged in his mind with a future business blueprint, sketching out a brand new world brimming with ‘profit prospects.’
At this time, the American economy was still growing rapidly.
Once people had spare money in their pockets, they would find ways to seek consumption and entertainment for themselves.
But what could the average American of this era do?
Nothing more than getting drunk in bars, brawling in the streets, or watching crude boxing matches—this was the typical pastime for many male laborers of that era.
But people couldn’t just drink cheap whiskey every day.
With the expansion of the middle class, people began to crave more respectable forms of entertainment.
However, relying solely on America’s indigenous culture, it was impossible to meet this rapidly expanding demand.
The country was a melting pot of immigrants from all over the world with vastly different cultural backgrounds; satisfying everyone was simply too difficult.
But if there wasn’t enough mature local culture, then why not just ‘take it’ from outside?
So where should they import things for mass consumption from?
Africa and Asia?
Forget about artistic completion; given the racial attitudes of the time, probably very few white audiences would buy into it.
It was an era where a Black or Asian person being beaten on the street for no reason was not considered unusual.
In a social atmosphere where discrimination against people of color was openly promoted and even institutionalized, expecting mainstream white audiences to accept culture created by people of color was nearly impossible.
If that was the case, then there was naturally only one place left that could bring’satisfactory culture.’
Europe.
The center of human civilization was still in Europe at that time, and the high culture and entertainment craved by America’s emerging bourgeoisie were inevitably sourced from there.
Thus, the commercially astute Thomas Edison resolved to make money from these European Films and use them as an entry point to control this nascent entertainment industry.
As for the original creators’ permission?
Copyright?
It simply wasn’t within his consideration.
The strong prey on the weak—it was the natural order.
Why bother?
The copies were already in his hands, and American law on the matter was virtually nonexistent.
However, out of a businessman’s caution, it was still necessary to probe a little, to see if the original creators had any troublesome backgrounds.
‘The company name shown at the beginning…
is ‘Karl and Otto Film Company.’ It should be a European company.’
‘German, perhaps?’ Edison wasn’t particularly familiar with European political geography.
‘Judging by the name, it might be from a German-speaking region, but that’s not entirely clear…’
The assistant answered vaguely.
After all, it was an era where Film history was embarrassingly short, industry information was extremely opaque, and knowing too much would seem strange.
Edison waved his hand, dropping the inquiry.
Regardless, he had already seen a clear future and a torrent of wealth in these Films.
‘The Film industry is still small and insignificant now, but it will explode in growth, just like electric lights and phonographs did back in the day.’
He began sketching a blueprint for monopoly.
The market wasn’t big enough?
Then use quality content to grow it first, then use capital and patents to firmly grasp it.
Once he swallowed up and dominated the vast, potentially limitless American market, money would flood in like a deluge.
He even began planning how to use patent barriers to control every link of the Film industry chain—from cameras and Film stock to projectors—to stand at an unassailable peak, kicking away the ladder for any who might try to climb up later.
‘Hahaha!’
In his office, Edison seemed to already see visions of countless dollars.
And indeed, as he anticipated, he really did amass a fortune by screening these European Films without authorization.
Works like ‘a trip to the moon’ and ‘vienna encounter,’ which even he himself admired, almost perfectly met the entertainment expectations of the entire American middle and labor class audiences.
With minimal time, effort, and capital, he reaped enormous returns.
Wasn’t Film precisely one of the core industries he had to seize control of early and firmly?
And just as he was smugly satisfied and preparing to make his big move—
‘Mr.
Edison…’
His secretary entered his office with a somewhat peculiar expression.
‘Hmm?
What is it?’
‘The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s legation in the United States just called.’