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 #:
000250
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.

2700 John F. Hexxegax, Cross Examination. * ture, "Wild Animals at Large/' and a Comedy reel, "In Time for Work." Q. Do you have any competitors in your immediate neighborhood? A. Yes, sir; three, right next door. Q. What is the seating capacity of your theatre? A. Three hundred. Q. What service is used by your competitors? A. One uses the Universal, and one the Mutual, and the other the General. Q. What is the seating capacity of the other respective houses? A. They all run about 300. Q. Have you at any time, as an exhibitor, had difficulty in keeping your programs clear? A. We had no difficulty at all in keeping it clear with the General service. Q. Did you use to have any difficulty? A. Well, we never ran anything but General service. We never had any difficulty. Q. How do the prices for the program you are now using in the Lubin Theatre compare with the prices you were paying in 1909? A. Well, the prices are considerably less, and the pictures far superior — no comparison whatever. 3 There has been such a vast improvement. We paid for our service f 150.00 a week originally, and now it averages with the General Film Company, when we run their pictures, about $100.00 a week. Q. How many reels did you use in 1909? A. Well, we ran 2 reels. Very seldom that we ran 3. Q. How many reels do you use now? A. Three reels when we run General Film service, but when we run features, like we are running, "Caprice" this week, there are 5 reels in that. It is a special picture. 4 Cross examination by Mr. Grosvexor: Q. You sold out this Magnetic Film Company in 1910, to the General Film Company? A. In November, 1910, 1 think it is. The exact time. Q. How did you happen to sell? A. Well, I heard that the General Film Company had taken over — well, previous to that, I had seen an article in the Moving Picture World, I think it was, about an organization known as the General Film Company. Q. You knew that the General Film Company had prior