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 #:
000485
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
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.

Frp:d C. Aiken, Direct Examination. 2335 were all in favor of it, practically all of them. I never heard any objection at all. Q. Prior to 1908, was it the common practice for two exchanges to be serving the same customer at the same time? A. Yes, sir. Q. It was clone to a considerable extent? A. It was. In our territory. Q. Was that practice objectionable, or not? A. It was. Q. In what respects and why? A. Well, it was injustice to the exhibitor in the first place. Our exchange may book a certain film, or subject, or program to its customers, for a certain day, and the eonrpetitor of that customer would ascertain that fact, and go to some other exchange to secure that film before our customer, or vice versa, at any cost; in other words, an exhibitor could not advertise the program, in fact, they guarded their program. Did not want anybody to knoAv what they were going to have the next day, for fear that other exhibitors would arrange to secure the same program for that night. Q. Was a licensed exchange at liberty to get its customers wherever it could find them, in 1909 and 1910? A. Yes. sir. Q. You were not circumscribed to any particular territory? A. No, sir. Q. Although your license would be given for a particular place? A. Yes, sir. Q. During the year 1908, do you know whether or not there was competition between the so-called Edison licensed manufacturers and importers? A. There was. Q. In what ways did they compete? A. They naturally were competing as to quality and subjects, because it was the better quality and subjects of films that would sell the largest. And they also made it a practice of having solicitors. Q. Did many of those solicitors come to you personally and solicit your business? A. They did. Q. Was that frequent? A. Yes, sir. Q. In what other ways did you observe the competition? A. Well, I don't know of any other particular way that 1 could observe the competition. They naturally were trying to make films so as to outsell their competitor. Q. Do you know whether or not at that time they sent