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 #:
000154
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.

2004 James B. Clark, Cross Examination. Mr. Kingsley : Objected to as incompetent, immaterial and irrelevant; as remote, speculative, and conjectural; as calling for a conclusion, and beyond the competency of the witness. The Witness : I would say they would, yes, sir. Q. Did that fact have any influence upon you in making you willing to sell out? Mr. Kingsley: Objected to as incompetent, immaterial and irrelevant The Witness: Well, I cannot say that it did. They had not opened any at that time, and had not threatened to open any, and we thought the best thing to do was to sell. We had a reasonable price for the place, and in fact, never gave that much consideration. By Mr. Grosvenoe : Q. But it was one of the circumstances that was in your mind, or one of the elements that you considered? A. Sure. Yes, sir. Q. You testified on direct examination respecting the negotiations with Kennedy, that you objected for a while to the terms of the payments? A. Yes, sir. Q. WThat were those terms? A. The cash end of the deal was to be divided into twenty payments. Q. Extending over a period of five years? A. Yes. Q. And payments of lump sums without interest? A. No, sir; with interest, Q. Well, was that term of the sale modified because of your objection? A. No, sir. Q. So you finally accepted the original proposition? A. Yes, sir. Q. As I understand your direct examination, at the time you took out a license as a rental exchange from the Patents Company, you understood that the conditions of the license agreements were to be lived up to? A. Yes, sir. Q. And that was impressed upon you? A. Yes, sir. Q. How did you happen to sell out to Kennedy? How did the matter come up? A. Mr. Waters telephoned me from New York that Mr. Kennedy wanted to see me to