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 2
Leaf #:
00031
Language:
English
Collection:
Early Cinema and Government & Law
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:
June 13, 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. Swaxson, Cros*s Examination. 649 Q. After you had talked with him? A. No, not after talking with him. That is how I started to talk to him. I hardly think Mr. Lewis is capable of giving me any instructions. Mr. Willis: I am glad you referred me to the source of proper information. Q. I forgot to ask you, Mr. Swanson, from whom did you make your large purchases of films in 1908? A. From the usual sources. Q. That is rather indefinite. Why don't you just give me the names, so that you will not prolong the cross examination? A. I will be very glad to do that, Mr. Willis, but it would be impossible to tell you, Mr. Willis, whom I bought film from. I have not any idea as to who all the parties were. Q. Well, when you placed orders running up into the thousands of dollars, did not that impress upon you the person with whom you were dealing at the time? A. As I explained, it was not altogether a method of placing orders. We would go up and just take material that was there at hand, and carry it away. Q. You had to pay for it sometime or other, didn't you? A. Yes, sir, the largest purchases I made were from the Pathe representative. Q. Pathe Freres? A. Yes, sir; I bought large quantities from Pathe Freres. Q. When? A. At all times. Continuously from the first day I went into business. Q. Well, who else? A. Selig Polyscope Company. The Lubin Company, Vitagraph Company, Chicago Film Exchange, Kalem, Essanay. Q. Did those purchases run into $10,000 or $15,000 or §20,000 at a time? A. Not with each individual party. No. That would be distributed between all of them. I have made payments of from five to ten thousand dollars at a time to one concern. Q. Which one of those that you have mentioned? A. Wei!, Pathe Freres. Q. Mr. Swanson, you spoke of your profits being $100,000 or more. In estimating those profits, what would you include in them besides cash? A. The various businesses that