On this day (May 13) in 1898 Thomas Edison once again showed he was an asshole. More specifically he sued the American Mutoscope Company, claiming that the studio has infringed on his patent for the Kinetograph movie camera. Read the full bit here.
Don’t take this to mean that I am not appreciative of Edison’s leadership and vision that led to the most important inventions and innovations of the 20th Century. I just wish the greedy, paranoid bastards wouldn’t have used the legal system to hold back and in some cases crush his contemporaries that were simply better and smarter than he. Case and point: Tesla.