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 (1914)

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:
1914
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 5
Leaf #:
00074
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
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2524 Petitioner's Exhibit No. 255. cago about the so-called 'trust' features, but if it has been there is not the slightest doubt about the position of the Edison company. The Supreme Court of the United States, and, particularly, the Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, have recognized that it is a perfectly proper thing for a patentee to grant licenses under his patents, and to insist in those licenses that the patented article shall be sold at a fixed price — which is one of the conditions of our license. "Some people have said in the papers that we organized an enormous moving picture trust in violation of the Sherman anti-trust act. In fact, I saw some reference to the possibility of referring an investigation of this matter to the federal authorities. "The courts have uniformly sustained agreements of this sort. Of course, where two or more competing manufacturers combine to control the price of an article of ordinary commerce, or of one of the necessities of life, such a combination would be in restraint of trade, and if that article were passed into interstate commerce it would be a combination in restraint of trade, under the Sherman act. But in the case of a patented article the patent is a monopoly granted by the government and recognized by the Constitution, and if the patentee has the right to absolutely control and restrict the sale of the article himself he obviously has the right to say to a licensee, 'I will give you a license on this patent with the understanding that you must sell the patented article at so much a piece,' or, 'You must sell it only in the City of Chicago, or subject to any other reasonable condition.' That is all we have done here, and that principle has been recognized for the last fifty years. Recently the courts have had occasion to pass upon that phase of the case in connection with the anti-trust legislation, and it has been held that an arrangement of that sort is not in restraint or violation of the Sherman act. Edison Patent is Sweeping. "The Edison company owns a patent which covers every motion picture film that is made in this country, or imported from abroad. "The Biograph company, so far as I know, has no patent that covers a film at all, but their patents are limited solely to little, trivial details in the machine for taking pictures, or