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)

Page scan 00057 from 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 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 #:
00057
Language:
English
Collection:
Government & Law and Early Cinema
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 12, 2024
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.

Harry N. Marvin, Direct Examination. 35 sent out and upon which that information was stated? A. I will. Q. In this letter of January 12th, which you have just read, Exhibit Xo. 8, you state: ''Nothing official need be said to your customers at the present time regarding the machine patents, royalties, etc. Within a few days, however, full instructions upon these points will reach you, together with a request from us for detailed information regarding the theatres you supply." When you say, "nothing official need be said to your customers at the present time regarding the machine patents, royalties, etc.," you refer to the two dollars per week which the customers were presently to be asked to pay? A. I do not really know. I did not write that letter and I cannot say exactly what was in the mind of the writer. Q. Was there a meeting of the rental exchanges, called early in January in New York City, at which this new license agreement, exchange agreement, was considered? A. There was a meeting there at that time. I don't know who called it, but upon the occasion of that meeting the proposed rental license agreements were taken up with some of the rental exchanges. Q. How many rental exchanges were there approximately in the United States in 1909, at the time of the formation of the Patents Company? A. In 1909? Q. Yes, or in the latter part of 1908? A. Why, I should say there were probably about 150. Mr. Grosvenor : I now offer in evidence the letter dated January 12, 1909, being Petitioner's Exhibit No. 8.