Shoot first ask questions later.
THOMAS EDISON WAS A MEDIA PIRATE!?!?!
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_to_the_Moon
A Trip to the Moon is one of my favourite films, Circa 1902.
I was reading about it today, and caught this…
Méliès had intended to release the film in the United States to profit from it. Thomas Edison’s film technicians, however, secretly made copies of it and distributed it throughout the country. While the film was still hugely successful, Méliès eventually went bankrupt.[1] This was due in part to the eventual view which was held towards his films that the special effects were overshadowing the plot.[8]
In an interview of Martin Scorsese by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, Scorsese said, “He [Georges Méliès] lost basically most of his financing when the bigger companies came in. What happened here. . . at that time there was a lot going on with copyright and not copyright and that sort of thing.†Stewart said, “There is a story that Edison had taken one of his [Georges Méliès] films, brought it to America and showed it and it became enormously popular in America. But Edison decided not to pay I guess what we would call royalties.†Scorsese replied: “That’s right. So what happened, the film was I think the famous one, ‘A Trip to the Moon.’ They [Thomas Edison and his associates] were just taking the films and making dupes of them. So that was one of the reasons why he [Georges Méliès] was finished financially, ultimately.â€[9]
Who knew, it was Thomas Edison who was the first movie pirate! lol.
Napster, pfftp.
Suggested Topics
