In the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the United States of America, petitioner, vs. Motion Picture Patents Company, et al., defendants (1913)

Record Details:

Title:
In the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the United States of America, petitioner, vs. Motion Picture Patents Company, et al., defendants
Date:
1913
Publisher:
New York, Appeal Printing Co.
Volume:
In the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the United States of America, petitioner, vs. Motion Picture Patents Company, et al., defendants : record volume 2
Leaf #:
000622
Language:
English
Collection:
Early Cinema and Government & Law
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
These seven volumes contain the testimonies and supporting documents from the U.S. District Court's antitrust lawsuit against the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC). Formed in 1908, the MPPC (sometimes referred to asœ"the Edison Trust" or just "the Trust") sought to control the American film industry through pooling patents and demanding that producers and exhibitors acquire licenses to those patents. Independent producers and exhibitors, who refused to license the patents, argued that the MPPC was an unlawful monopoly. In 1912 and 1913, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania heard testimonies from both MPPC members, such as Siegmund Lubin, and "Independents" who later became Hollywood moguls, such as William Fox. Ultimately, in 1915, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which found the MPPC in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and spelled the end for the already weakening MPPC. -- Eric Hoyt, 2012
Date Added:
September 21, 2023
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

1240 J. C. Graham, Cross Examination. these two film exchanges to exhibitors in different states were sent out on a rental basis, were they not? A. Rented to theatres, yes, sir. We operated a regular theatre film exchange business, the same as any other film exchange in the United States. Q. You rented them to the theatres and the exchanges? A. Yes. Q. And received the motion pictures back in due course of business? A. That is right. Q. After they had exhibited them? A. Yes. Q. And your business was the business of a rental exchange in each instance pure and simple, was it not? A. A rental exchange, yes, sir. Q. Was Mr. Crawford interested in the ownership of any theatres? A. I could not answer that. I knew nothing about Mr. Crawford's personal business at the time. Q. Wras the Crawford Film Exchange interested in any theatres? A. No, sir. Q. Were you interested in any theatres? A. Not in St. Louis. Q. Where were you interested in theatres? A. Interested in a theatre in St. Joseph, Missouri, which was not tributary to us at all. Had nothing to do with us. Q. Didn't you supply it with motion pictures? A. No. Q. Is that the only theatre in which you personally were interested? A. Yes. Q. Were any of your other stockholders interested in theatres, exhibition houses, motion picture places? A. I think Mr. Aitken was interested in a theatre in Milwaukee. Q. Do you know the name of that theatre? A. No. But none in St. Louis. Q. You kept on in the rental exchange business, did you not? A. Not those two companies. No, sir. Q. Are you in the motion picture business now? A. I am. Q. In what company are von interested? A. You mean my present capacity? Q. Well, are you a manufacturer of films at present? A. Yes, I am interested in one of the manufacturing companies. Q. In what company is that? A. I am interested in the Reliance Company.