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 #:
000506
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 21, 2023
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.

2356 Ralph Le Beau, Direct Examination. 1 RALPH LeBEAU, the next witness produced on behalf of the defendants, being first duly sworn b}T the Examiner, deposed as follows : Direct examination by Mr. Caldwell : Q. Mr. LeBeau, where do you live, and in what business are you? A. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Q. What business? A. Branch manager of the General Film Company at that point. Q. And how long have you occupied that position? A. 2 Since November 15th, 1913. Q. Prior to that, what business were you in? A. I was connected with the Kansas City Feature Film Company, Kansas City. Q. How long have you been in the film rental business? A. Since January, 1908. Q. Do you know who owned the Kansas City Feature Film Company? A. Mr. A. D. Flintom. Q. What is the territory served by the Milwaukee branch of the General Film Company? A. All the State of Wisconsin, except west of La Crosse, and the northern peninsula 3 of Michigan. Q. What branch serves the part of Wisconsin west of La Crosse? A. The Minneapolis branch. Q. What competition have you in your territory? A. We have the Western Film Exchange at Milwaukee, handling the Mutual output, also the Milwaukee Film Exchange, handling the LTniversal output. Q. Any other exchanges located in Milwaukee? A. None at all in Milwaukee. Q. Are there any exchanges located elsewhere that compete with you in your territory? A. H. Davis at Watertown, Wisconsin, and the Grand Rapids Film Exchange at Grand Rapids, Michigan. Neither are buying exchanges. Q. And what other exchanges? A. No others in the State. Q. Are you in competition with the Famous Players Film Company? A. Yes, sir. Q. What office or branch of that company? A. A concern in Minneapolis which handles Minnesota and Wisconsin. Q. Are you in competition with the Warner Feature