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 #:
00087
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.

Circulars to Rental Exchanges. 65 APPLICATIONS FROM UNLICENSED THEATRES. 1 From the date of this announcement, all applications for licenses from unlicensed theatres will be governed by the following two rules, and service from a licensed Rental Exchange may only be obtained by such applicants upon the conditions set forth below: (1) If Motion Pictures have not been shown in the theatre within four months prior to date of application, service must be refused until the Rental Exchange has received notice from the Patents Company that a license has been granted. In this case flO must accompany the application, which, if the license is granted, applies on the royalties of the theatre from the date service begins. Where the application is refused, the flO is returned. (2) If Motion Pictures have been shown in the theatre four months prior to date of application, the Patents Company must receive a signed and .> dated application for license, together with a fee of f 10 to cover the license fee for the first five weeks from the date of the application, and the Exchange may then supply service from the date the application is mailed to the Patents Company. The applications will be finally acted upon by the Patents Company as rapidly as possible. If a license is issued, the $10 applies upon the royalties of the theatre from the date service began. If the application is refused, the entire fee will be returned, and the Exchange notified to discontinue service. 4 RELEASE DAY. The Patents Company will impose a penalty of not less than $100 or the revocation of the license of any Exchange for the violation of the release day rule. This rule provides that no licensed film shall be shown, handled or forwarded by a licensed Exchange until 8 A. M. of the day upon which the film is released by the Manufacturer.