I was wrong. It was over 15,000 diggs for the original story. I don't think they have ever had that many.
Digg's still down.
And here's the guy who started the war:
"My friend Chris Haley was smart enough to save the entire page at almost the height of its fame. At 15,492 Diggs, HERE IS THE FULL ARTICLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. All the comments are there. You can even expand the hidden comments. Thanks Chris!"
Source: Stuff to Think About: How I got banned from Digg
RIAA,MPAA, before all that there was the MPPC and Edison.
For the first ten years, the use of the new movie cameras and projectors was tied up in a protracted patent war between Edison and other inventors. In 1907, Edison formed the Edison Licensee Group. In 1908, this group joined with the Biograph Company to form the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was able to dictate royalties for the creation and showing of motion pictures.
http://www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/isc3.htm
Early copy protection was developing pictures of the stills of a movie, since copyright law could be enforced with photos.
My friend once had an idea to sell "Pirate CDs" on the internet, back in '94 or '95. We would have made a killing, and probably could have raised a million dollars in venture capital. Of course, these pirate cds would have pictures of Blackbeard, and parrot sounds. We probably would have been sued for infringement anyway... somebody must own those parrot sounds.
Arrr... Really Bad Pirate jokes.
