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 #:
000142
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.

2592 James B. Clark, Direct Examination. Q. And does this depend on the age of the film? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did the Film Service Association at any time attempt to put a schedule of prices into effect? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did the Film Service Association succeed in doing that? A. No, sir. Q. Was the General Film Company operating in this territory prior to the sale of your property of your exchange to it? A. No, sir. Q. Prior to the sale of the property of your exchange to the General Film Company, did you have any competition in this territory with unlicensed exchanges? A. Yes, I believe there was one. It did not amount to much. Q. When was the Pittsburgh Photo-Play Company started? A. I cannot answer that. We bought the exchange about two years ago. Q. Do you know whether the Pittsburgh Photo-Play Company was started before or after the General Film Company entered this field? A. After. Q. Who started the Pittsburgh Photo-Play Company? A. Mr. Warner and Mr. Lande. Q. And had Mr. Warner and Mr. Lande been in the motion picture business prior to that time? A. Yes, sir; they had the Duquesne Supply Company, which they sold to the General Film Company. Q. Is the Warner you have mentioned, the Warner's Features man? A. Yes, sir. Q. In 1908, did you regard the motion picture business as stable or unstable? A. I regarded it as rather unstable. Q. How did you regard it in 1909 and 1910? A. As rather unstable, then, too. Q. For what reasons did you regard it as unstable in these years? A. Well, on account of the competition from other exchanges. They could make a raid on your customers and take away enough in a week's time to make you run your exchange at a loss instead of at a profit. Q. Well, couldn't you cut down your buying to adjust yourself to the new condition? A. No, we had to buy enough for a. program whether Ave had two customers or a hundred. Q. So that, while you might be making money with a certain number of customers, if they were materially reduced,