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 000412 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 #:
000412
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.

390 William Pelzer, Direct Examination. Q. How many branches has the General Film Company? A. Offhand, I think there are forty in the United States, and five in Canada. Q. The central office is located at 200 Fifth Avenue, New York City? A. Yes, sir. Q. What sort of reports do you receive from these different exchanges of the business they are doing? A. I couldn't give you that in detail. Q. How often do you receive such reports? A. Weekly. Q. And those weekly reports show the amount of film bought during the preceding week, do they? A. The amount of film leased from the manufacturers. Q. And the amount of film sub-leased by the branch of the General Film Company to the exhibitor making the report? A. I do not think the reports give that detail; they undoubtedly give the aggregate amounts — Q. Received? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the weekly expenses? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is the operating expenses? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the net profits? A. They do not state the net profits. Q. Or the gross profits? A. Not even the gross profits. They give the amount of the receipts and the other disbursements— they could not figure the profits because there would be other items chargeable to those offices from time to time. Q. Then, from these weekly reports is a general report made up every week for the use of the officers and Directors of the General Film Company, showing in summary form the result of all those reports from the different exchanges, which are exchange branches? A. No, not every week. Q. How often is the summary made up? A. I couldn't say; I have not had occasion to look at such summaries since I have occupied the office of Treasurer, but I believe it requires an interval, at least, of a month or more before any such summaries are made. Q. Who preceded you as Treasurer? A. Mr. Samuel Long. Q. And how long was he Treasurer? A. I can't say exactly; I should say about a year. Q. Do you know what is done with those reports when