About
The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak, is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic roots in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated in New Jersey. It is best known for photographic film products, which it brought to a mass market for the first time.
Kodak began as a partnership between George Eastman and Henry A. Strong to develop a film roll camera. After the release of the Kodak camera, Eastman Kodak was incorporated on May 23, 1892. Under Eastman's direction, the company became one of the world's largest film and camera manufacturers, and also developed a model of welfare capitalism and a close relationship with the city of Rochester. During most of the 20th century, Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film, and produced several technological innovations through heavy investment in research and development at Kodak Research Laboratories. Kodak produced some of the most popular camera models of the 20th century, including the Brownie and Instamatic. The company's ubiquity was such that its "Kodak moment" tagline entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that deserved to be recorded for posterity.
Kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s as a result of increasing competition from Fujifilm. The company also struggled with the transition from film to digital photography, even though Kodak had invented integral color image sensors and had developed the first self-contained digital camera prototype in the mid-1970s. Attempts to diversify its chemical operations failed, and as a turnaround strategy in the 2000s, Kodak instead made an aggressive turn to digital photography and digital printing. These strategies failed to improve the company's finances, and in January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
In September 2013, the company emerged from bankruptcy, having shed its large legacy liabilities, restructured, and exited several businesses. Since emerging from bankruptcy, Kodak has continued to provide commercial digital printing products and services, motion picture film, and still film, the last of which was distributed through the spinoff company Kodak Alaris until 2026. The company has licensed the Kodak brand to several products produced by other companies, such as the PIXPRO line of digital cameras manufactured by JK Imaging, and in the 2020s has expanded into the health sector with the opening of a pharmaceuticals production facility.
From Wikipedia’s article on Daniel Carp, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2
Companies
- Delta Air LinesBoard member May 3, 2007 to Jun 21, 20195
- Delta Air LinesChair 2007 to 20166
- KodakChief executive officer Nov 21, 2003 to Jan 6, 20067
- KodakChair Nov 21, 2003 to Jan 6, 20067
Early life and education
Career
- 2007 to 2016Chair, Delta Air Lines4
Professional photo chemistry
The brand rights to Kodak professional photo chemistry, passed to Kodak Alaris in 2012 as part of the bankruptcy settlement. In 2020, Alaris sold these rights to Sino Promise, a Chinese supplier of the color chemistry for minilabs. However, in early 2023, Sino Promise decided to exit the business; this enabled Photo Systems Inc. US, who had been a manufacturer of some of the products for Kodak Alaris, to acquire the brand rights directly from Eastman Kodak in September 2023, with the intent to re-introduce the full range of black & white, and C-41, RA-4 and E6 color photochemistry.
Departure from Better Business Bureau
In 2006, Kodak notified the BBB of Upstate New York that it would no longer accept or respond to consumer complaints submitted by them. On March 26, 2007, the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) announced that Eastman Kodak was resigning its national membership in the wake of expulsion proceedings initiated by the CBBB board of directors. Kodak said its customer service and customer privacy teams concluded that 99% of all complaints forwarded by the BBB already were handled directly with the customer, and that the BBB had consistently posted inaccurate information about Kodak.
From Wikipedia’s article on Daniel Carp (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Philanthropy
In 2005, Kodak Canada donated its entire historic company archives to Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Ryerson University Library also acquired an extensive collection of materials on the history of photography from the private collection of Nicholas M. and Marilyn A. Graver of Rochester, New York. The Kodak Archives, begun in 1909, contain the company's Camera Collection, historic photos, files, trade circulars, Kodak magazines, price lists, daily record books, equipment, and other ephemera. It includes the contents of the Kodak Heritage Collection Museum, a museum established in 1999 for Kodak Canada's centennial that Kodak closed in 2005 along with the company's entire "Kodak Heights" manufacturing campus in Mount Dennis, Toronto.
From Wikipedia’s article on Daniel Carp (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Legal issues and controversies
Industrial films
Kodak Aerocolor IV 125 2460 Color Negative Aerial Film
Kodak ACCUMAX plotter films for printed circuit boards
Kodak ESTAR polyester films
Read more
Early legal issues
Patent infringement
Kodak encountered several challenges from rival patents for film and cameras. These began while Eastman was still developing his first camera, when he was forced to pay inventor David Houston for a license to his pre-existing patents. A major lawsuit for patent infringement would come from rival film producer Ansco. Inventor Hannibal Goodwin had filed his own patent for nitrocellulose film in 1887, before the one owned by Kodak, but his was initially denied by the patent office. In 1898, Goodwin succeeded in convincing the patent office to change its decision, and his patent was granted. Ansco purchased the patent in 1900 and sued Kodak for infringement in 1902. The lawsuit spent over a decade in court and was finally settled in 1914 for $5 Million for Kodak.
Anti-trust lawsuit
In 1911, the federal government began an antitrust investigation into Kodak for exclusive contracts, acquisitions of competitors, and price-fixing. Eastman had cautioned the board of directors against eliminating competition, but believed that many of the company's other monopolistic actions were in the best interest of consumers by allowing the company to produce high-quality products. The investigation resulted in a lawsuit against Kodak in 1913 and a consent decree in 1921, ordering Kodak to stop fixing prices and sell many of its interests.
FIGHT
Before the civil rights movement, Kodak hired virtually no African-American employees. In the 1950s, Rochester's African-American population grew rapidly, rising from 7,845 in 1950 to around 40,000 in 1964. Many objected to Kodak's discriminatory hiring practices and organized to end the status quo. The civil rights organization F.I.G.H.T. (Freedom, Integration, God, Honor—Today) was formed in 1965 by Saul Alinsky, and led by Minister Franklin Florence. The organization protested Kodak and successfully negotiated an agreement with the company to hire 600 African-American workers through a job training program in 1967.
Polaroid Corporation v. Eastman Kodak Company
Kodak and Polaroid were partners from the 1930s until the 1960s, with Polaroid purchasing large quantities of film from Kodak for its cameras and further research and development. Their cooperative partnership came to an end in the late 1960s, when Polaroid pursued independent production of its film and Kodak expressed an interest in developing its own instant camera, bringing them into direct competition. In 1976, Kodak unveiled the EK series of instant cameras. Shortly after the announcement, Polaroid filed a complaint for patent infringement in the U.S. District Court District of Massachusetts, beginning a lawsuit which would last a decade. Polaroid Corporation v. Eastman Kodak Company was decided in Polaroid's favor in 1985, and after a short period of appeals, Kodak was forced to exit the instant camera market immediately in 1986. On October 12, 1990, Polaroid was awarded $909 million in damages. After appeals, Kodak agreed to pay Polaroid $925 million in 1991, then the largest settlement for patent infringement in US history.
Pollution
In the 1980s, contamination from silver and other chemicals was discovered in the land around Kodak Park and the nearby Genesee River. In 1989, a pipeline at the edge of the park burst, contaminating a nearby school with about 30,000 gallons of methylene chloride. Many families living near the factories chose to relocate as a result. Kodak pledged $100 million to study and clean up pollution. The company received a $2.15 million fine from the state of New York for illegally disposing of silver-contaminated soil and failing to disclose chemical spills in 1990, the largest environmental fine ever issued by the state at the time. Kodak remained a heavy air and water polluter during the 1990s.
In the 1990s, an elementary school was built on the site of the former Kodak factory at Vincennes in France. After three cases of pediatric cancer were reported at the school, an INVS investigation was opened into potential carcinogens left behind from the factory. The school was closed in 2001, but no link between the cancers and factory pollutants was established by medical experts. The school reopened in 2004.
In a 2014 settlement with the EPA, Kodak provided $49 million to clean up pollution it had caused in the Genesee River and at superfund sites in New York and New Jersey.
Pharmaceuticals loan
On July 28, 2020, the Trump administration announced that it planned to give Kodak a $765 million loan for manufacturing ingredients used in pharmaceuticals, to rebuild the national stockpile depleted by the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce dependency on foreign factories. Kodak had not previously manufactured any such products. The funding would come through U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and was arranged by presidential trade advisor Peter Navarro. Within two days, the company's stock price had gained as much as 2,189% from its price at the close of July 27 on the NYSE.
The New York Times reported that one day before the White House announced the loan, Kodak CEO Jim Continenza was given 1.75 million stock options, some of which he was able to execute immediately. The funding was put on hold as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began probing allegations of insider trading by Kodak executives ahead of the deal's announcement, and the funding agency's inspector general announced scrutiny into the loan terms. In November, CEO Jim Continenza stated that Kodak was still committed to pharmaceutical manufacturing without the loan. The DFC concluded no wrongdoing on its part in December. Continenza and other executives were ordered to testify as part of the SEC investigation in June 2021. A class-action lawsuit from Kodak investors was dismissed in 2022.
Xinjiang social media post
In July 2021, Kodak removed a post about Xinjiang from its Instagram page. The photo was taken by the photographer Patrick Wack, who describes the region as an "Orwellian dystopia" in a reference to the persecution of Uyghurs in China. In later statements on Instagram and WeChat, Kodak declared its Instagram page was not a "platform for political commentary" and affirmed their "close cooperation with various [Chinese] government departments".
From Wikipedia’s article on Daniel Carp (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataDaniel Carp on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaDaniel Carp on Wikipedia
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- 4
- 5SEC EDGARDelta Air Lines, Board member
- 6WikidataDelta Air Lines, Chair
- 7SEC EDGARKodak, Chief executive officer