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 000244 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 #:
000244
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.

'I'l'l Harry N. Marvin, Direct Examination. 1 Patents Company was due to your desire to bring about this control which you have stated you deem necessary. Mr. Caldwell: I object to that. A. No, I would not say that was true. Many of those conclusions that were reached in the end were not apparent in the beginning, but in the very beginning, at the time the Motion Picture Patents Company was organized, it was apparent that if it was possible to restrict certain films from exhibition — and I refer to indecent films that were quite commonly exhibited in the low dance halls and saloons at that time, and were bringing discredit upon the entire business — if those conditions could in some way or other be changed, and the circulation of that film prevented, that it would benefit the entire business, and every decent person in the country. The exhibition of such films was bringing the art into discredit. Clergymen throughout the country, and those interested in the problem of civic welfare, were making an outcry against the motion pictures per se. The good lectures, the educational pic 3 tures, refined pictures, the uplifting pictures, were bearing the odium of that attack, and it became apparent to anyone that the elimination of that class of exhibitions would benefit the art. Q. You state in your answer that all the manufacturers and importers doing business in the United States in 1908, took out licenses from the Patents Company? A. 1 did not say all of the importers. Q. Well, all the manufacturers? A. The manufacturers. Q. Was all the stuff that was injuring the public, to 4 which you have just referred, was that all made abroa<l? A. I believe it was. There was a great quantity of indecent films coming over here from Europe. Q. And you think the only way to remedy that condition was to form a single company controlling the whole business? A. I did not say that. Q. Well, I ask you if you think that? A. I do not know how many different ways there were of doing it. I think that the organization of the Motion Picture Patents Company did have that effect to a certain degree. Not