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 #:
000119
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 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.

Fred 0. Aiken, Redirect Examination. 25G9 Q. What was the rule in 1900? A. Practically the same as it is today. Q. That is to say, the price of the motion pictures was determined by the age of the release? A. Well, in 1900 there were a great many films that had been made that had really never been released. Q. I am not speaking of the pictures that are in actual service. Is the price determined by the date of the release and was the price determined in 1908 by the date of the release? A. Yes, sir. Q. lias any other rule for fixing the value of motion picture service been in effect, of which you are aware? A. No, sir. Q. Do you know the rule which prevails in unlicensed exchanges with respect to the price of motion pictures? A. We understand it is the same. Q. They base their prices upon the age of the release? A. Yes, sir. Q. When numerous copies of a motion picture are in use in a given neighborhood, does it lose value more rapidly on that account? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the reason of that? A. The reason is because more people would see that subject in the same length of time if there were six copies than they would if there were only one. Q. Would you say that if five copies were out, that the feasibility of exhibiting the subject would decrease more rapidly than if one copy was out? A. Yes, sir. Q. Would you say that as the number of people who have seen a motion picture in a given territory increases, the value diminishes? A. That is very true, and that is what determines the price. Q. Have you ever had any experience of replacing a worn copy of motion picture by a copy which has never been in actual physical use? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is the price of the copy which has never been in actual physical use determined by the release date? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was it your experience during the period of the Edison license agreement and subsequently, during the Patents Company license, that tin1 productions of the different manufacturers, while sold or leased at uniform prices, were actually of different values? A. Yes, sir.