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)

Page scan 000283 from 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 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 #:
000283
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:
September 12, 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.

Frank L. Dyer, Direct Examination. 1509 one. Then sometimes a film will be worn out very quickly because it is very popular, and will be subjected to the greatest amount of usage in the first two or three months. That kind of a film would be returned. And sometimes we are unfortunate enough to have a film ruined the first week or the first day or the first time it is run through the machine, due to the imperfect operation of the projecting machine, or the stupidity of some operator, and such a film as that is returned, — so that it is impossible to have any fixed rule that applies to all films, but taking the question from all angles, I think that it can be said that the average film that has been run under average conditions six to seven months is worn out and ought to be returned. Q. And that had been the actual experience of the Edison Company as a producer of motion pictures at the time this agreement was made? A. Yes, sir. We wanted to give the films their full measure of life, but get them back before they did harm. Q. Paragraph 7 provides that the licensor and licensee shall mark conspicuously on the labels which shall be placed on the boxes or packages containing motion pictures, certain terms and conditions of sale, which labels were to be headed as follows : "Licensed Motion Picture. Patented in the United States, August 31st, 1897, reissued January 12, 1904. The enclosed motion picture is sold upon the following terms and conditions. ■■ Then follow four conditions under which the picture is sold, the first of which is that the purchaser shall not re-sell the same, but shall have only the right to use it in giving motion picture exhibitions or to rent it out. Do you know in point of fact whether the labels on the boxes containing motion pictures manufactured and sold by the licensees and the licensor and required to be so marked, were, in point of fact, so marked, in accordance with the printed conditions required by this paragraph? A. So far as I know, that is so. It was certainly so in the case of the Edison Company and I believe it was so with the other licensees, because we saw that they received these labels, and I have occasion to see a good many pictures put out by the other licensees, and they all contain this label on the box. Of course, I was quite interested in this particular proposition, and would have noticed if the label had not been on the box.