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 #:
000391
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:
July 25, 2024
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Ike Van Ronkel, Direct Examination. 2241 were kept busy knowing how many customers we had. Some of them would jump the traces over night. We would go to bed at night with a hundred, say, and the next morning have only sixty. So we could not keep any trace of it. Q. Can you state whether or not the cost of service to the exhibitor was increased after the formation of the Motion Picture Patents Company? A. It was not, Q. Is the exhibitor getting more reels for the same price, at the present time, than he was getting in 1908 and 1909? A. To answer that broadly, when the business started, they ran one reel probably twice a week, for which they paid higher, with an investment of about |200 to us. Today, we are supplying them an investment of about $2,800, for about the same price; that is, for $25, or $35 a week, four reels a day, when they formerly run two reels a week. It gradually ran from two reels a week to two daily, and from two daily to three daily, and from three daily to four daily, and they are paying about the same for twenty-eight that they formerly paid for two. Q. Is there any difference in the character and quality of the pictures furnished then and now? A. The quality and character of the pictures are very much improved; in fact, they are works of art, whereas formerly they were pictures of train robberies and escapes from Sing Sing, railroad hold-ups, and now we have dramatic plays, educational, and the Panama Canal, and the quality has greatly improved. Q. Has there been any improvement in the character of the motion picture theatres, structures, and exhibiting accommodations, within the last few years, in Chicago? A. We formerly had store shows, of from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty-five seats. Today we have theatres costing from eighty to a hundred thousand dollars, and seating from six hundred to a thousand people, and built from the ground up for motion picture business, and continually they are building. In private residential neighborhoods they are building theatres costing from forty to fifty and sixty thousand dollars. In Chicago they are not built as large as we would like to have them, because of the fire and building restrictions ; you cannot build a theatre having more than two hundred and ninety-nine seats, unless you allow ten feet on either side. So there