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 3
Leaf #:
000280
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:
July 11, 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.

1506 Frank L. Dyer, Direct Examination. part of the business. They were pictures that were made at the request of some outsider for a special purpose. Q. By "outsider" you mean someone not engaged at all in the motion picture business in any of its phases? A. Yes. For instance, the City of New York might want to have a picture taken showing the Street Cleaning Department. The Navy Department might want a picture taken, showing what a very pleasant life the American sailor leads. Manufacturers require pictures showing operations, for the purpose of impressing their customers. The National Cash Register Company has had a great many motion pictures made to illustrate questions of salesmanship. These were special pictures, the negatives being the property of the person or corporation for whom the picture was made. I remember the Southern Pacific Railroad Company had pictures made showing the development of the Texas lands. And there were quite a good many of them, but in the aggregate, compared to the amusement side of the business, they amounted to very little. The reason these particular conditions were imposed, was the same as in connection with the minimum price, the Edison Company being a competitor, could have gone out after this particular business and secured all of it at prices that the other licensees could not possibly have met, and it was felt that the price of a dollar per foot was reasonable. That would be only $500 for a five hundred foot subject, which would involve sending a man and a camera and an outfit, generally arc lamps, and so forth, sometimes to quite distant points. The price of fifteen cents was made higher than for the regular amusement pictures because generally not more than two or three copies were printed from these special negatives. But this part of the business was almost inconsequential. Q. I call your attention to the provision contained in Paragraph 17 of the same agreement, that no sales except for export shall be made except under certain terms and conditions, one of which is that the purchaser shall return to the licensor or licensee, as the case may be, from whom such positive motion pictures have been purchased, on the first day of every month, beginning with August 1st, 1908, an amount of positive motion pictures in running feet (not purchased over six months before) and of the make of the licensor or licensee, as the case may be,