The result was the creation of a trust of sorts: the Motion
Picture Patents Company (MPPC). From 1909 to 1915, the MPPC brought order
to the industry with a licensing code and drew many of the embattled
motion picture companies under a single umbrella. The organization
increased profits for all, although it came under fire from independent
companies for its monopolistic behavior. Edison received a large
share of the profits, although he was eventually driven out of
the market by falling prices and increased competition. His share
of the business was finally sold to the Lincoln and Parker Film
Company in 1918.
Analysis
Edison's involvement in the movie business marked a new
phase in his life. No longer a pioneer in inventions, he more and
more depended on his celebrity and the achievements of others to
remain in the running for new industries and popular technologies.
Needless to say, this did not endear Edison to his workers at the
West Orange facility, since he often used their labor to enhance
his own name and profits.
Edison also proved himself to be surprisingly conservative
when it came to inventing a new technology, the projection camera.
He refused to consider the prospect for a number of reasons, not
the least of which a projection camera would substantially eat
into the profits of his Kinetoscopes. If film viewing were a communal
experience, Edison calculated, then fewer film projection machines would
need to be sold because more people could watch the same film at
the same time. It was his stubborn refusal to develop a projection
camera that drove Dickson to leave the Edison laboratory and develop
his own.
Edison's involvement with the MPPC also marked a sharp
turn for the inventor's business philosophy. It was unlike Edison
to attempt such broad-based market sharing with so many competitors,
even though Edison garnered a large share of the MPPC's profits,
thanks to the patents he had either filed for himself or bought from
other inventors. In the past his strategy had been to aggressively
fight competitors out of the market.
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