The Edison phonograph monthly (Mar 1904-Feb 1905)

EDISON PHONOGRAPH MONTHLY. TESTIMONY AND PROPHECY FROM AUSTRALIA. The following interesting article on the present and future of the Edison Phonograph appeared in the Times of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on October 9th : Only those who have chanced to hear them can commence to realize the revolution that has taken place in talking machines within this last two years. Most persons have heard the old Edison Phonograph with its voice talking, or singing, down a chimney. It was wonderful, startling, but on the whole more curious than practical. Very few were anxious to have more than a small instalment of its performances. But quite lately nearly all the old defects have been swept away. It is an actual fact that on a good machine you can now hear the human voice in song or speech so exactly reproduced that the absence of the living mouth can be detected by the eye alone. Together with this increase in quality, the price of machines and Records has so fallen as to be within the reach of every purse. The great fillip to the trade was the invention of the Moulded Record. That is, once you get a good master Record and make a mould, it is possible to reproduce duplicates at a nominal cost of material by the hundred thousand. Already it is a distinct and lucrative branch of the musical profession to perform exclusively for the record-maker. It is now only a question of time, and a short time, too, when a talking machine will be indispensable to every household ; and that not only as a source of amusement, but as a help in numberless other directions. On the cheap and perfect record now in sight the politician will speak his condensed speech, and post a copy to every constituent ; the parson will post his sermon after preaching it in his study. The shopkeeper will post that enticing speech by which yoxi are induced to buy the latest thing in bootware, hatware, or backware, as the case may be. No one will write letters to anybody; it will be so much easier "to graph." The school teacher can so model his system that nearly all can be done by record instruction. Newspapers will give as supplements records in the voice of the famous persons of the day. And it takes no great stretch of fancy to imagine the newspaper itself superseded by the daily record. Certainly as a means of correspondence even the typewriter will be obsolete when record making, is further simplified and cheapened. What lover would not rather talk to the loved one and hear her voice than see her pen marks? What friend will not rather hear the friend's voice than read a lifeless note on paper? The prospect of development is boundless. For teaching purposes universities may be abolished ; a trained body of professors can send their lectures to students at the end of the world, and by the same means the student may send replies and questions. The wholesale house of the future will find in the morning's mail not a stack of letters, but records. It will be the duty of clerks to hear these records and dictate an answer on another record. It will thus arise that the future gold medal clerk will not be he who writes a good hand or is swift with the typewriter, but the one with a clear, distinct voice, competent to make a good record. The customer going into a large store will not need to find a shopman at each counter to describe the merits of a line of goods. He will touch a button near at hand, and a mechanical talker will tell him all he wants to know. The Governor of a State, already largely a figurehead, will be quite unnecessary; his speeches of congratulation on opening a public building or laying a foundation stone are of necessity of such a sameness that one of a baker's dozen of original speeches from King Edward himself, properly recorded, would be a grateful substitute. Better the voice than the shadow of royalty. In law courts the evidence of witnesses and parties in the case will be taken on records with a great saving of time. In the railway carriage every stoppage will announce the name of the station and duration of stop. The business man will not personally interview ordinary callers, who now fritter away his time. In an ante-room a small boy with a stock of appropriate records, made by the principal, will have a reply for everybody. One great blessing of the new era that many of us may shortly see is the tendency it will have to compress speech ; the windy person will be a waste to so much valuable record space. Our politicians, parsons, and public men will have to learn to blue pencil their remarks. Already the talking machine is the greatest blessing that ever came to the bushman or the dweller in lonely places. By the mere winding of a key he is put in touch with the world's best in the way of music or song.# And no one now should learn to play or sing unless possessed of great natural aptitude for at their best they will always be so inferior to the machine. THE RIGHT TO REGULATE PRICES. Regulating the selling price of a patented article as an inherent right of the inventor has been firmly established in connection with talking machines, said the Music Trade Reviezv in a recent issue. As to the trend of recent or modern decisions on the question of the power and right of patentees to regulate the prices and terms of sale of tneir patented articles, through and by their licensees, the Federal courts have recently, in several judicial pronouncements, found and held that patentees have such right; that they may prescribe the price and lay down the terms of sale which their licensees shall charge and impose in selling to the general trade the patented articles covered by the patents under which the license is granted. This was determined by the Supreme Court of the United States in May, 1902, in the case of Beamant against the National Harrow Company and in several other instances enumerated below. In this case the court, after ana