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 000560 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 #:
000560
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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2410 Elmer R. Pearson, Cross Examination. be an opera house, it may be a school house, it may be a store room used for a theatre on that particular night. We do not give them any special significance as a theatre. We accept their business when we get it, but we keep in closer touch with the theatre that runs every day than we do with the house that only runs intermittently, or only once a week. Q. You do not consider a place that is open only once a week, a theatre, then? A. Some of them are and some of them are not. Q. If they are, and some of them are theatres, why didn't you include them in your number of 750? That is what I am trying to get at. A. Well, I suppose there is perhaps an inconsistency there, but I figured that I had to arrive at something reasonably definite, and there may be 50 and there may be a hundred of these theatres running intermittently in my territory, and are pretty hard to know about, and these that run regularly are not so hard to know definitely about. Q. Isn't it a fact that you have included in your 750, all these places that are on your mailing list? A. No, sir, I have not. There are probably 50 others on my mailing list that I am not positive run even once a week. Q. Why did you, when you started to count these names, why did you eliminate these one-night shows? A. Well, because, just as stated in my last answer, I don't know absolutely that they run this one night a week, but my mail is received at the point, and the points are so small that I have never seen fit to send a road man down there to see what the business consisted of, but my mail is being received there, and I have reasons to believe that perhaps they are running intermittently, or perhaps once a week, but I am not positive of it, and for that reason I did not count them. Q. These 750 on your list are all theatres that change at least three times a week? A. Yes, sir. They all run more than one day a week. Q. And do you have some customers that run one day a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many should you add to that 750, if you should add the customers that take service once a week? A. That varies anywhere from 12 to 21, I believe. Perhaps 24. I want to also say that all of those do not run one night every week. Some weeks they do not run at all.