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 4
Leaf #:
000227
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
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.

Thomas W. Stephens, Direct Examination. 2077 Q. To what extent were the resources of that company devoted to the patent litigation with the Eastman Company? A. You mean the expenses of the litigation? Q. I refer, now, to the two suits just testified to by Mr. Anthony, the first suit of the Goodwin Company against the Eastman Company, for infringement of the Goodwin patent, and second, the suit brought by the Eastman Company against the Goodwin Company for alleged infringement of the Turner patent? A. Do you mean the expenses of those suits? Q. Yes, in those lawsuits? A. A great many thousands of dollars, perhaps a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars. Q. And what was the capital of the Anthony & Scoville Company at that time? A. A good deal, rather large on paper. Q. But the actual capital, not the paper capital? A. I should say their inventory at that time would, perhaps, amount to four hundred thousand dollars. Q. Were you connected with the company when it got into financial difficulties in 1903? A. I was a Director, yes. Q. Will you state what you know of the arrangement that was made with the banks for carrying the company? A. Yes, its debts to the banks were funded into what were known as "serial gold notes" extending over a period of years, a certain number being redeemable at stated periods. Q. Was it able to meet those notes as they fell due? A. It was not. Q. State what you know about the appointment of a committee of banks to supervise the fiscal affairs of this company? Mr. Grosvenor: I make the same objections to all of this testimony as has been made to the testimony of the witness, Mr. Anthony, on the same subject. It is entirely immaterial to any issue in this case. The Witness: As is customary when a corporation gets into financial difficulties, its creditors, usually banks, are most apt when asked to either grant an extension, or to increase its accommodation, to place accountants, expert accountants, in charge of the business, and in this case there was no exception to that rule. Such a firm was placed in