November 11, 2011

Another new device perfects the method of duplicating phonograms containing matter which may be worth selling, such as books, music, sermons, speeches, or plays.

In the United States, the Edison and Tainter patents on the phonograph have been purchased by the North American Phonograph Company, of New York, and the corporation expect to make of it the strongest sort of a monopoly. They have fixed the capital stock, as a starter, at the modest sum of $6,600,000, and will doubtless increase the amount, if the invention succeeds as well as they expect. The company proposes to follow the footsteps of the Bell Telephone Company in scooping in money. That is to say, the phonographs will be rented, not sold, the rental each year being say $40, or say five times more than the first cost of the instrument.

Labels: 1880s, 1888, Friday Flashback Fun, music subscriptions, Thomas Edison