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 #:
000495
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 21, 2023
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Albert E. Smith, Direct Examination. 1721 and one that tends to disgust people who are interested in the art, and consequently to hold it back and prevent it from being developed as it would develop in its normal condition. Q. You have spoken of dirt and scratches as diminishing the value and artistic excellence of the film. Is there some mechanical destruction of it also, at the same time? A. Yes. The film is run through the machine at a high rate of speed, a thousand feet of film running through the machine in less than twenty minutes. It runs through at the rate of one foot every second, and running through at that high rate of speed, the relatively soft edges of the holes perforated in the film by which the sprocket wrheel engages and carries the film through, becomes very badly worn, so that whereas, where a film is brand new it will stand on the sheet "rock steady," to use a professional term, after it has been exhibited several dozen times, it commences to lose that rock steadiness, and then with each succeeding exhibition, it will become more and more unsteady on the sheet, until, after being used for a number of months, the unsteadiness is so bad as to be liable to injure the eyesight. Q. In other words, the sharp delineation of the picture on the screen is gradually obscured and blurred? A. It is Le fogged. (,). Mr. Smith, do you keep in touch with the progress of the business so far as you can? A. As closely as possible. Q. Do you devote all of your time to it? A. Practically all of my time. Q. Are you at the Vitagraph Company's studio and plant practically every day of the year? A. Practically every day. except with very reasonable vacation. Q. Can you tell us something about the extent and quality of the competition now existing between the licensed producers and importers of motion pictures? A. The competition between all the producers is very keen, each one striving for mechanical and photographic excellence, in addition to their endeavors to try and put out a very high type of story, and to tell a story on the sheet in such fashion that it shall be very easily understood by the spectator, there being a great difference between a play presented by actors and actresses, and a picture presented by a photographic representation, on account of the inability of the still char