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 #:
00042
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.

660 William Fox, Direct Examination. tween the Patents Company and the rental exchanges prior to that date? A. I had not. Q. You may state whether or not anyone read that agreeement to the different persons present? A. During that meeting that agreement was read by Mr. Dwight MacDonald. Q. While you were present? A. Yes, while I was present. Q. And then was there discussion at the meeting in regard to the agreement? A. I took the floor on behalf of my company, and protested against the agreement. After hearing the contents of the agreement read, and finding that it changed the terms of the way we were to do business in the future between the Edison agreement, which we got in 1908, and the license agreement of the Motion Picture Patents Company that was read by Mr. MacDonald (the Edison agreement allowed us to purchase film and own it outright, and the license agreement of the Motion Picture Patents Company was drawn so that they were leasing the film to us), I stated at that meeting, I said: "I can't understand why there is going to be any change made here in regard to the ownership of the film," and I said, "You, Mr. MacDonald, was present at the meeting when the first agreement was made — " Mr. Kingsley : I desire to object now to anything that was said by the witness to Mr. MacDonald as incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. The Witness : I said, "You, Mr. MacDonald, were present at the first meeting — " Mr. Grosvenor : This Mr. MacDonald that you are referring to was the Dwight MacDonald that became the General Manager of the Motion Picture Patents Company? A. Yes, that is the Mr. MacDonald I mean, the man that was formerly secretary of exhibitors in disguise — Mr. Kjngsley: I object to that, and ask that it be stricken out.