Today marks the anniversary of the inauguration of Thomas Edison's zealous legal quest for control over movie production, a quest which would eventually end with his getting out of the movie business altogether, and to the film industry's relocation to a pretty little place eventually known as Hollywood.  The legal wrangling began on this day in 1898 when Edison filed suit for patent infringment over the mutoscope, which was developed by one of his former assistants and which Edison contended was similar to the Vitascope, the camera developed by two of his other assistants.  A decade later, the fight for control would lead to the formation of the Motion Pictures Patent Company, sometimes called the Edison trust, an attempt to limit the participation in the fledgling industry to a handful of major players. 

Shut out of the deal and looking for a way into the business and away from the long and exceedingly strong arm of Edison's patent enforcement based out of Edison's headquarters in New Jersey, independents fled to the far side of the continent, flocking to the sunny climes of California, where there was lots of land and little legal detection.  Which is a pretty good thing:  it's hard to imagine saying Hooray for New Jersey.

In those pre-Mickey days, players sought control over the means of production.  Now, it's content that has Hollywood battling Silicon Valley.  Stay tuned; pratfalls ahead.