Zonophone
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| Corporation | |
| Industry | Recording industry |
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor |
Victor Talking Machine Company (immediate) EMI (1931–2013) Warner Music Group (2013–present) |
| Founded | 1899 |
| Founder | Frank Seaman |
| Defunct | 1903 |
| Headquarters | Camden, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Products | Phonographs, phonograph records |
| Owner | Seaman, Eldridge R. Johnson, EMI, then Warner Music Group |
| Website | www |
Zonophone (early on also rendered as Zon-O-Phone) was a record label founded in 1899 in Camden, New Jersey, by Frank Seaman. The Zonophone name was not that of the company but was applied to records and machines sold by Seaman from 1899–1903. The name was acquired by Columbia Records, Victor Talking Machine Company, and finally the Gramophone Company/EMI Records. It has been used for a number of record publishing labels by these companies.
Emile Berliner, the inventor of the lateral-groove disc record and the Gramophone; Eldridge Reeves Johnson, the machinist who had improved Berliner's Gramophone to the point of marketability; and former typewriter promoter Frank Seaman formed a partnership. Berliner was to hold the patents; Johnson had manufacturing rights; and Seaman had selling rights.
Seaman's contract contained a clause stating that if he could produce a Gramophone that was cheaper to manufacture, the board of directors would be compelled to assess it. Seaman complained that Johnson's version was too expensive, but Johnson wasn't interested in a redesign since he was already heavily invested producing the existing model. Seaman hired Louis Valiquet to design a less-expensive-to-manufacture version of Johnson's Gramophone. Valiquet's design was not only less expensive, but more rugged and more attractive. The Berliner board refused to consider Seaman's design, likely due to complicity between Berliner and Johnson. Seaman then began producing Valiquet's design as the Zonophone, and he marketed against the other machine he was promoting, the Gramophone.
Berliner and Johnson sued Seaman for contract violations and patent infringement, and Seaman counter-sued. With the help of lawyer Philip Mauro, Seaman arranged for an alliance with Columbia Records (then manufacturing only cylinder records and machines), arguing that the patents held by Columbia concerning cylinders applied to any type of recording where a stylus 'floated' on the surface of a recording, and that Zon-o-Phone would pay royalties if Columbia helped him drive Berliner out of business. In 1900 Seaman and Mauro succeeded in getting a judge to file an injunction that Berliner and Johnson stop making their products.
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Wikipedia