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 #:
000604
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
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578 Gov't Ex. 133, Act. Edison & Eastman Kodak Cos. Patents Company capable of exhibiting or projecting by either transmitted or reflected light motion pictures on film not wider than approximately one (1) inch, upon the payment of a royalty or license fee not to exceed three (3) per cent, of the net retail selling price of each such machine, and that it will impose no other conditions or restrictions upon the manufacture and sale of any such machines than that they be used solely in places where no admission fee is charged, and that there be attached to each such machine a plate, in a conspicuous place, showing plainly, not only the dates of the letters patent under which it is licensed, but also said condition or restriction, and that such plate is not to be removed therefrom; and that it will also grant a license to the Eastman Company to manufacture and sell such exhibiting or projecting machines containing the inventions described and claimed in any letters patent that the Patents Company may hereafter own or control, subject to similar conditions and restrictions, and upon the payment of additional license fees or royalties to be fixed by the Patents Company, the royalty or license fees and all the conditions and restrictions of all the licenses that may be granted by the Patents Company to manufacture and sell such exhibiting or projecting machines to be the same for the Eastman Company and all such licensees with the exceptions hereinbefore referred to in this paragraph. 24. It is further mutually covenanted and agreed by and between the Patents Company and the Eastman Company that the Patents Company shall, within fifteen (15) days after June 20, 1909, pay to the Eastman Company twenty-Tour (24) percent of the gross royalties or rents collected by or paid to said Patents Company prior to June 20, 1909, for the use of exhibiting or projecting machines capable of exhibiting or projecting motion pictures on translucent or transparent film of a greater width than approximately one (1) inch licensed by it, containing any of the inventions described ami claimed in the letters patent referred to in Paragraph 4, and in any other letters patent hereafter owned or controlled by the Patents Company, and also twenty-four (24) percent of the gross royalties or rents collected by or paid to the Patents Com