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 000412 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 #:
000412
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.

2 2262 Elmer R. Pearson, Direct Examination. Q. Those are obtained by you from the various factories in the East, I suppose? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you sell these exhibiting or projecting machines outright to the customers? A. Yes, sir. (For further cross examination see page 2401.) ELMER R. PEARSON, a witness produced on behalf of the defendants, being first duly sworn by the Examiner, deposed as follows: Direct examination by Mr. Caldwell: Q. Mr. Pearson, where do you live, and what business are you engaged in? A. I live in Omaha; brancli manager of the General Film Company at that point, Q. And how long have you occupied that position? A. Since June, 1912. Q. What territory is served from the Omaha branch of the General Film Company? A. Practically all of Nebraska and about three-quarters of Iowa. Q. Who are your competitors in that territory? A. Well, we have Laemmle at Omaha. Q. What is the name of his company? A. It is the Laemmle Film Service. They handle the Universal program. And they also have a branch at Des Moines. The Mutual Film Company at Omaha also has a branch at Des Moines, and we have the Omaha Film Exchange in Omaha, and there are probably twelve or fourteen smaller feature film companies, and so forth, located in Kansas City, Des Moines and Chicago, that operate in our territory. Q. Name some of the principal special feature companies that operate in your territory. A. There is the Warner Feature •Film Company, and the Famous Players Film Company. Q. Do they have offices in Omaha? A. No. They are both located in Kansas City, but, then, they operate in our territory, and the World's Best Feature Film Company, the Union .Features, Kansas City Feature Film Company, and there are some more; several more, in fact;