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In 1893 a ‘device’ had been sparking wild speculation amongst inventors, engineers and thinkers about the future of theatre and storytelling. It was Thomas Edison’s ‘Kinetoscope’, a device which allowed a single viewer to see a moving image through a tiny peep hole in the top.
In the United States, Edison’s device was locked down with patents and impressive lawyers, but elsewhere in the world he had failed to protect it. So, true to the spirit of the time, an electrical engineer in England was making a name for himself producing replicas of the machine based on pirated designs. His name was Robert Paul.
What goes around comes around. Edison himself was no angel, he had ‘borrowed’ the design of the Kinetoscope from a French inventor called Louis Le Prince. who had spent years working on it whilst studying in Leeds England. On September 16th 1890, Le Prince was taking his device from France to New York where he would unveil his incredible invention to the world. His brother waved goodbye to him as the train departed the station, and that was the last anyone ever saw of him. Le Prince and his device vanished into thin air. Years later, Edison would take Le Prince’s family to court in a battle over the patents. The case would last more than a decade, but it would be Edison who was recognised as the inventor of motion picture by American courts.
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Source: IMRGE