George Atkinson (June 2, 1935 - March 3, 2005), is an American businessman, credited as the father of a storefront video store in the US. When the first videotape was available to the public, he was already in the movie business. Customers in the form of hotels and pizza restaurants will rent 8mm public domain movie and film projectors, and then U-Matic video cassettes. The first video rental store, however, was opened by Eckhard Baum in 1975 in Kassel, West Germany.
In the fall of 1977, George Atkinson made some extra space in his shop and bought one Betamax and one copy of VHS from each of the first 50 movie titles of Magnetic Video, which was then sold to the public via direct mail. Announced the availability of the video for rent in a one-inch-inch (25 mm) ad in the Los Angeles Times on December 7, 1977 (he advertised "Rented Videos" on an earlier date before he had a video, along with a coupon for readers to fill out and sent incoming mail), Atkinson converted his shop into the first professionally managed video rental store and named it the Video Station, a 600 square foot (56 mÃ,²) outlet on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. To increase capital, Atkinson charges $ 50 for "annual membership" and $ 100 for "lifetime membership", which provides an opportunity to rent videos for $ 10 per day.
Atkinson was immediately threatened with a lawsuit for renting the video, but found that U.S. copyright laws giving him the right to rent and resell the video he owned. The battle to protect the public's right to rent videos was a major catalyst for the establishment of the Video Software Dealers Association in 1981.
Atkinson established the first major chain of specialty video retailers - "The Video Station." At its peak, the network has more than 600 affiliates across the US and Canada. He calls this independently operated shop an "affiliate" rather than a franchise, not only to get around the California franchise taxes, but also because he does not believe "putting his hands on someone else's checkout." The company eventually became public but Atkinson resigned as president in 1983.
He was the first "Man of the Year" (1981), named "Video Retailer of the Year" in 1982 and sworn in to Video Hall of Fame in 1991.
Video George Atkinson (video rental businessman)
References
- "George Atkinson, pioneer of video rentals, died at the age of 69". USA TODAY . March 8, 2005 . Retrieved December 22 2010 .
Maps George Atkinson (video rental businessman)
External links
- George Atkinson on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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