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 #:
000496
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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1722 Albert E. Smith, Direct Examination. acters to speak. And so it is necessary in a picture, if a picture is made from a play, to take the lines of that play and visualize the lines — something that on the stage, for instance, one of the characters maA' refer to by conversation— we must show in a picture. So that it necessitates a very keen insight and comprehensive knowledge of the art, which has been developed by very few people, in order to present high-class pictures on the sheet. I can best illustrate that by showing what has happened between the Vitagraph Company and the Melies Company, in which the Vitagraph Company is interested. The Vitagraph Company, from the time that our legal annoyances ceased, has steadily progressed, not alone in this country, but all over the world, it being generally known that at the present time, in Europe, where competitive conditions prevail to the greatest extent, that the Vitagraph Company disposes of more of its product than any other manufacturer in Europe. Several years ago the Melies Company, because of the inferiority of their pictures, had so fallen down in the scale, that from selling 100 prints of a good production, they had, to my positive knowledge, reached a point where they only sold one, and at this period in its history, it made application to the Patents Company for permission for Mr. Blackton and myself to associate ourselves with the company, Mr. Melies' words before the licensees and officers of the Patents Company being that he did not need financial assistance as much as he needed the assistance of someone who had a very intimate knowledge of the production of film stories. Mr. Blackton and myself were given permission to associate ourselves with Gaston Melies in a small way. We must not actively participate. We could superintend their scenarios, and assist in that way, and while those scenarios were under our jurisdiction, and while the pictures were submitted to us for the benefits of our editing, the Melies Company's business grew to quite an appreciable extent. I think they reached the point where they sold 50 or GO copies of their productions again. After we had been associated with Gaston Melies for a year or more, he became imbued witli the idea that he had assimilated from Mr. Blackton and myself all of the knowledge that we had and he thought he could produce pictures as good as we could, and so he discontiued taking our advice, and went to California to produce pictures entirely on his own initiative, against our advice, and against