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 000370 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 4
Leaf #:
000370
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
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.

2220 Albert J. Gilligham, Cross Examination. show a week afterwards, or within three days afterwards, — I have known of instances where his competitor has got on a train and gone to Chicago and brought the film back with him, and put it on one day or two days ahead of the other man, therefore causing the other man quite a loss through the amount of money that he expended in advertising, and it was a very unpleasant condition. That practice don't exist any more. Q. And the public in the end was the sufferer by that? A. The public was the sufferer, sir. Cross examination by Mr. Grosvenor: Q. Mr. Gilligham, you have been quite a number of years in the film business, haven't you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you start in with a small venture or investment in 1906? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much did you start with? A. Do I have to answer that question? Q. Well, was it very little? A. No, it was not very little. It was a fair sum. It was several thousand dollars. Q. That was what you invested in the rental exchange business in 1906? A. Yes, sir. Q. And your business had developed, and grown in the years 1906, '07 and '08? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the amount that you put in had largely increased by 1910? A. I had taken it out several times, Mr. Grosvenor. Q. You had not only taken it out several times, but you had several times that amount remaining in the business? A. I considered it worth several times that amount. Q. So that in spite of the conditions which you on your direct examination described as unsatisfactory in 1906 and '07, the fact is that, so far as your business was concerned, it had been very prosperous? A. It had been very prosperous, but considering the length of time that I had to devote to it, which was virtually day and night in them days, Mn\ Grosvenor, I did not feel that I was more than receiving a good salary for the time I put in at it. Q. You said on direct examination that conditions in 1906 and 1907 were unsatisfactory. Competition was so keen, and there was no regulation to it, Is that what you said on direct examination? A. Yes, sir.