The term "paper print" describes the unusual provenance of this collection. When cinema began in the late 1890s, there was no way to obtain copyright protection for new motion pictures. The Edison Company, concerned over the rampant piracy of films in the early years, arranged to protect their short films by ensuring copyright for each individual frame as separate photographs. Thus, the Library of Congress received versions of these films – each frame meticulously printed one after the other – on rolls of paper for copyright deposit. It was not until the 1950s that film archivists and technicians created specialized equipment with which to reproduce these films onto celluloid for exhibition.
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