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 #:
000478
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:
May 23, 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.

456 Louis Rosenbluh, Direct Examination. 1 Petitioners Exhibit No. 111. Form 52-1 OM 8-'09 MOTION PICTURE PATENTS COMPANY 80 Fifth Avenue New York City September 30th, 1909. Greater N. Y. Film Rental Co., 2 116 E. 14th St., New York City, X32. Gentlemen : — You are hereby notified that we have cancelled the license of the Noveity Theatre at El Reno, Okla., D. L. Walker, proprietor, on account of the exhibition of unlicensed film. Do not supply any film for use in this theatre after receipt of this letter without notice from us. q We direct your attention to the following extract from our Exchange letter, Form 11, dated February 10th, 1909. "All contracts for service either to old or new customers should be made subject to the conditions that the exchange may discontinue the service upon receiving notice from the Patents Company that the, license to the theatre has been withdrawn, or that a license to the theatre will not be issued, or that the application claimed by the theatre to have been sent to the Patents Company has not been received/* 4 Very truly yours, MOTION PICTURE PATENTS COMPANY. I1NM/ By M.