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 000387 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 #:
000387
Language:
English
Collection:
Government & Law and Early Cinema
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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Ike Van Ronkel, Direct Examination. 2237 that territory, by the Famous Players Film Company? A. The Famous Players are supplying, anyhow, fifty customers, but I want to make that plain to you. The Famous Players are really supplying some of the customers that both the Universal, Mutual, and myself are supplying. It does not make more customers, but they are supplying some of the same customers. Q. What is the practice in that territory as to the service furnished by the Famous Players? A. The Famous Players release one picture each week, and a customer may take from me six days, and one day from the Famous Players, and he may take six days from the Mutual or Universal, and one from the Famous Players, and they may be supplying one day of the week the same customers we are supplying. Q. Their program comprises an entire evenings entertainment, or program? A. Yes, sir, a four or five-reel program, star feature, at fancy prices, and there are probably fifty customers that they are supplying at forty dollars each, making two thousand dollars in rental, I should judge, coming to them at present. Q. Do you know how many exhibitors are supplied by the General Film Feature Company? A. They have about one hundred customers, at, I think, about twenty dollars apiece, making two thousand dollars. Q. Is there any connection between the company known as the General Film Feature Company, and the General Film Company? A. No, sir; none whatever. They handle nothing but the independent films, and feature film is all — I was going to say, in their customers, they do not handle them the entire week either, and they don't have a hundred different customers from the others — we are supplying only about thirteen hundred customers in that territory — that is, the three rival exchanges are supplying that many. I wish to correct a statement in reference to the Upper Peninsular territory of Michigan. The idea I tried to convey to you as to the General Film Company supplying them outside of the Detroit office, but when the office was moved from Chicago to Milwaukee, the Milwaukee office supplied this Upper Peninsular — most: of them, we transferred them to that office in Wisconsin, so they are being supplied from there. That will make