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 #:
000206
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.

824 Lewis Ml Swaab, Direct Examination. By Mr. Grosvenor: Q. Mr. Swaab, you may state whether or not you had been given any opportunity for a hearing on this question of whether you had violated the terms and conditions of your license agreement? A. I never violated the terms or conditions, and I never was given a hearing except the one I have just referred to, when the license agreement was read to me word for word, but I never had an opportunity to defend myself. Q. Did you discuss the matter with Mr. Marvin? A. T tried to. Q. Would he discuss it? A. No. He insisted upon reading that document to me. Q. Later on in January, you may state whether or not you had a visit from anybody? A. Yes, sir; I did. Q. When was that? A. On the 24th day of January. Q. 1911? A. 1911; yes, sir. Q. Please state what happened on that day? A. Four men representing the Patents Company, and four deputy sheriffs came down and took charge of my place. Put me out of business in about three hours. Q. Were some replevin suits brought against you about that time? A. Yes, sir. Ten replevin suits. Q. By whom? A. One in each of the manufacturers' names. The licensed manufacturers' names. Q. That is, Pathe, Biograph, and the others who were licensed? A. Yes, sir; ten of them. Q. Were the following the ones: The Biograph Company, Edison Mfg. Company, Essanay Film Mfg. Company, the Kalem Company, George Kleine, Lubin Mfg. Company, Melies Mfg. Company, Pathe Freres, Selig Polyscope Company and the Vitagraph Company? A. Yes, sir; those were the ones. Those are the ten. Q. You may state whether or not these sheriffs had any description of the property being taken? A. Yes, sir. Mr. Kingsley: I object to that as being a conclusion of the witness. By Mr. Grosvenor: Q. How did these men take up their position in your place of business? A. One, Coffey, by name, went behind the