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 #:
000425
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.

A. J. Clapham, Cross Examination. 1043 we get our catalogues, and they advised us that the manufacturers signified their willingness to keep on selling the short subjects for mail order purposes. If there has been any violation of the Patents Company's conditions, it has been without any knowledge on my part, and the facts that the licensed manufacturers have been selling this film to us through the Enterprise Optical Manufacturing Co. has been sufficient guarantee to us that everything was strictly proper. I would like, however, to correct any impression that might have been formed that the Theatre Film Service Co. has ever sold any film, as they are strictly renters of film and there has never been a foot of film leased by them from the manufacturers that has been sold. If there is any further information that I can furnish, I will be glad to do so. Yours truly, THEATRE FILM SERVICE CO., A. J. Clapham. AJS-S Stamped: Received Jan. 17, 1910. Ansd. 2/4/10— S. By Mr. Kingslby: Q. I show you a copy of a letter, dated February 4th, 1910, addressed to Mr. A. J. Clapham, Theatre Film Service Company, 76 Second Street, San Francisco, California, signed by the Motion Picture Patents Company, and ask you if you received the original of it (handing paper to witness)? A. (witness examining paper): I presume that I received the original. Mr. Kingsley: I offer it in evidence. The paper identified by the witness is marked Defendants' Exhibit No. 23, and is as follows: