The Patent Wars

If you had to summarize and explain the events that led from the film industry's transfer from New Jersey to Los Angeles, how would you explain it? What was Thomas Edison's role in this transition? What role did patents and Nickelodeons play in this dispute?

    The events that led to the film industry's transfer from New Jersey to Los Angeles all had to do with the Patent Wars and the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC). Thomas Edison was notorious for patenting technology, suing other companies for infringement and buying the patents of people who've gone bankrupt because of his lawsuits. This is exactly what he was doing during the early years of the film industry in America. Eventually, he and some of the largest film companies in America banded together to form the MPPC, using monopolistic strategies to control the industry and make profits using licenses and lawsuits. However, there were already far too many Nickelodeons (early movie theaters) for them to prosecute and many more to come with the large interest in movies as affordable entertainments for the working class and immigrants. Eventually, a German immigrant by the name of Carl Laemmle created the Independent Motion Picture Company (IMP) and eventually Universal Pictures. The IMP, with many other independent companies like modern day Paramount and 20th Century Fox, had migrated west to be as far as possible from the MPPC (located in New Jersey). They wound up in Los Angeles where they began to make movies. Nickelodeons and audiences loved these movies because they were better, longer, and more creative than what the MPPC produced. That's because the MPPC viewed movies as a novelty and were trying to stabilize the profits from films, meaning that they had no reason to innovate and the quality ultimately suffered. Thus, the increasing popularity of the independent 'illegal' films, made them wealthy and powerful enough to where  even the MPPC couldn't afford all the lawsuits that they were filing against the IMP. Eventually, the MPPC failed and was ruled as a monopoly and dismantled, leaving the biggest studios out in LA to thrive.