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 000497 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 #:
000497
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.

William H. Swanson, Direct Examination. 475 ters that they wished to take up with regard to licenses and so forth, which we understood that Mr. Braden handled, exclusively, all complaints of this kind. Q. Regarding cancellation of licenses? A. Yes, sir. Q. Of exhibitors? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the renewal of liceses? A. Yes, sir; and anything that he could not quite decide himself, or did not choose to decide, he always stated that he would take that matter up with Mr. Marvin. Q Who is Mr. Durant Church? Do you know anybody by that name up there? A. I have met Mr. Durant Church, and my understanding is that he is a representative of the manufacturers who goes out with the writs of replevin and makes all seizures for the various manufacturers of film that belong to the various manufacturers, for any reason whatever. Q. Is he located at the Patents offices? A. I understand he is: he is there to be found. Mr. Caldwell: ] move to strike out the last ) ans witness. two answers as stating the understanding of the Q. Have you met him? A. Yes, sir. Q. Up at the offices of the Patents Company? A. Yes, sir. The witness, Louis "Rosenbluh was excused until 10.30 o'clock A. M., January 24, 1913. Thereupon WILLIAM H. SWANSON resumed the stand. Direct examination (continued) by Mr. Grosvenor: By Mr. Grosvenor: Q. In 1909 where was the business center of the motion picture business, in Chicago or New York? A. Chicago was a much larger field than New York at that time.