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 (1914)

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:
1914
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 5
Leaf #:
000228
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
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2078 John D. Kessler, Cross Examination. picture service during the four years you have been operating the Star Theatre? A. Yes, sir. Q. How do the prices which you are now paying the General Film Company compare with the prices you paid to the Kent Film Exchange early hi 1910? A. If I had kept on at the prices I paid in 1910, I don't believe I would have been in existence today. I got twelve reels and paid seventyfive dollars, and I get twenty-eight reels today, and pay eighty-five dollars, for the service, and get my advance program. Q. Do you find that the manufacturers of the licensed motion pictures are competing with one another in trying to create favor with the exhibitors? A. Yes, sir, for the betterment of the business today. Q. Do they send you circulars, and call your attention to the merits of their productions? A. Yes, sir. Q. And are they sending you circulars and letters, urging upon you the desirability of interesting your exchange in giving you certain pictures, or certain subjects? A. Yes, sir. Also, they want to find out what is better for the public. They are always wanting to do something for the betterment of the picture game. Q. What do you say as to whether the motion pictures in the past three or four years furnished by the licensed manufacturers, or producers, have improved, or gone back in quality and artistic excellence? A. They have improved a thousand per cent., not a hundred, but a thousand per cent, to my imagination. Cross examination by Mr. Grosvenor : Q. You have run regularly a licensed theatre? A. Yes, sir, in these four years. Q. During those four years? A. Yes, sir. Q. And this theatre has been profitable during that period? A. Yes, sir. Q. Throughout that period since you opened it? A. Yes, sir. It had been used as an independent theatre before that. Q. Did you succeed in that? A. I didn't use it, but the man that had it didn't. Q. He didn't succeed? A. No, sir. Q. Then in spite of this interchange of courtesies between you and your competitor, referred to on your direct examina