The physical location of Hollywood as the center of the film world was an accident of law and weather. In the early 1900s, Thomas Edison held the patents on almost all film-making equipment through his 'Motion Picture Patents Company' in New Jersey. He frequently sued independent filmmakers for using 'his' cameras. Filmmakers fled to the West Coast to get as far away from Edison’s lawyers as possible—and because the California weather allowed for year-round outdoor filming. Hollywood was originally a small, religious community that actually banned movie theaters. However, the arrival of the first studio, Nestor Studios, in an old tavern in 1911 opened the floodgates. By 1915, the majority of American films were being produced in this once-quiet suburb, turning a real estate gamble into a multi-billion dollar global empire.