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 000338 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 #:
000338
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:
September 12, 2024
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1564 Frank L. Dyer, Direct Examination. 1 Thereupon FKANK L. DYER resumed the stand. Direct examination continued by Mr. Caldwell: Q. What is the effect on film of the sprocket holes being torn or enlarged? A. If the sprocket holes are torn on both sides of the film, the film will not feed through the projecting machine, and there will be danger of its being ignited. If the sprocket holes are torn on one side only of the film, it is likely to be fed irregularly through the projecting machine, and ride up on the sprocket teeth, so as to thereby 2 stop the feeding movement. If the sprocket holes are enlarged, the successive pictures do not register accurately in the projecting machine, and produce jumping or irregular projections on the screen. Pictures that are projected on the screen, as is well known, are very much enlarged, so that any defect in the machine is correspondingly exaggerated. Q. Could you state approximately the extent to which the picture on the film is magnified on the screen? A. About ten thousand times. Q. So that the slightest variation in the correct posi 3 tion of the film would result in a very poor exhibition? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the effect of the film being scratched? A. A scratched film is one in which longitudinal scorings through them cut through the gelatine of the emulsion down to the celluloid base. Light is projected through these scratches, and interferes very materially with the projection. Where the scratch is considerable, as is the case with an old film, the repeated passing of the scratches across the eye give somewhat the appearance of a violent storm of rain, and these pictures were therefore called "rain storms." 4 I recall seeing a play in New York written by my cousin, Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin, called "Bebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," where this defect was utilized to produce the effect of rain on the stage. Q. What is the effect on the film of a break or tear necessitating splicing? A. It produces a hiatus in the reproduction. A foot of film, roughly speaking, corresponds to about one second of time. Therefore, if a foot of the film is cut out, a second of time is lost. This is very frequently observed in motion pictures where, for example, a man is