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 3
Leaf #:
00095
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.

H. N. Marvin, Direct Examination. 1321 bona fide for export, when the goods, addressed to the purchaser, agent or consignee, are delivered to the vessel or to a transportation company for transportation to "said export territory/' and not otherwise. 23. The Licensor and the Licensee further mutually covenant and agree that in the "lease territory aforesaid," all leases of positive motion pictures by the Licensee for the purpose of sucli subleasing shall be at the prices hereinbefore provided for, without the allowance of any discounts or rebates or other reduction by which such a lessee might acquire positive motion pictures at lower prices than those set forth in Paragraph 16, or any substitutes therefor hereafter adopted by the Licensor. The Licensee further covenants and agrees that, in the "lease territory aforesaid," the Licensee will not sell or offer for sale other goods or merchandise at less than current prices in order to induce the lease of positive motion pictures, for the purpose of such subleasing nor present or donate other goods or merchandise or prizes, or make use of credit cards or trading stamps, or offer any premiums of any kind whatsoever to induce such lease of such positive motion pictures. 24. It is further mutually covenanted and agreed by and between the Licensor and Licensee that no lease under this license of positive motion pictures, on film of a greater width than approximately one and one-eighth (lVs) inch, shall be made in the "lease territory aforesaid" by the Licensee, except upon and subject to the following terms and conditions, the substance of which (with the exception of the conditions as to the return of positive motion pictures hereinafter referred to) shall be expressed in a printed notice on the labels, as provided for in Paragraph 14, accompanying each such positive motion picture, namely (1) that the lessee of such positive motion picture shall not sell or otherwise dispose of the same outright, and shall not have the right to use or sub-lease for use such positive motion picture in giving motion picture exhibitions in machines containing the inventions or some of them of said Letters Patent Nos. 578,185, 580,749, 580,953, 588,910, 073,329, 073,992, 707,934, 722,382, 744,251, 770,937, 771,280, 785,205, and 785,237, not licensed by the Licensor;