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 1
Leaf #:
00048
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.

26 Harry N. Marvin, Direct Examination. Q. This paper which you have read dated January 9, 1909, states, "In addition to the licensed manufacturers whose films licensed exchanges have heretofore been permitted to handle, the Motion Picture Patents Company has licensed the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company of New York City, which has a present output of two reels a week; and Mr. George Kleine of Chicago, who will have a weekly output of two reels of Gaumont film and one reel of Urban Eclipse Film." Prior to this agreement George Kleine had represented a number of foreign manufacturers had he not? A. Yes. Q. Seven or eight? A. I don't know how many. Q. Quite a number? A. Several, I think. Q. Now, under this agreement he was barred from importing any foreign film except those stated here, namely, two reels of Gaumont film and one reel of Urban Eclipse film? A. Yes, that is different subjects, he could import an unlimited quantity of goods of those subjects, of course. Q. Yes, but I mean he was barred from importing any goods of other manufacture? A. Yes. Q. Excepting those two named? A. Yes. Q. Prior to this agreement he had been importing all others besides those two named? A. Yes, I think he had. Q. I read further: "The new agreement will be found not to materially alter the present system of handling licensed film, the principal change being that no licensed motion pictures will be permitted to be used on any projecting machine which is not licensed by the Patents Company under its patents. All projecting machines now in use will be licensed by February 1, 1909, upon the payment of a nominal fee." Now, that applies to the so-called exhibitors' royalty, that sentence, does it not? A. Yes, the payment of that small fee there is the license fee for the use of the projecting machines. Q. What was that fee? A. Well, it has been fixed and has continued at approximately two dollars per week. Q. Every exhibitor? A. From each person licensed to use a projecting machine covered by our patents. Q. At that time there were a large number of projecting machines owned by the different exhibitors in the United States? A. Yes, they owned them so far as they could under infringing machines.