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 #:
000387
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.

Max Milder, Cross Examination. 2837 Q. It is the age alone that determines the price? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, isn't it also a fact that in buying or renting these films from the ten manufacturers you pay the same to each manufacturer per foot? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is there competition as to quality between the manufacturers? A. Each one tries to put out better subjects than the other one, and each one boosts their own subjects, and naturally want to sell their own goods. Q. Is there any competition as to price? A. I think the prices are the same. Q. Then there is no competition as to price, is there? Mr. Kingsley: Objected to, as calling for the opinion of the witness. The Witness : I think the prices are the same. By Mr. Grosvenor: Q. Does your branch of the General Film Company act as a rental exchange to distribute the films of any manufacturer other than those making up the list of the ten licensed manufacturers? A. No, sir. Q. How often do you make reports to the head office? A. Once a week. Q. And what sort of reports do you make? A. The number of customers that we are supplying, and our film rental per week, and a general report of the business, covering the expenditures and receipts. Q. And the amount of feet of film which you have taken from each of the different manufacturers? A. We send a report of the films that we buy each week. Q. Who is your superior officer in the General Film Company? A. I don't know. I send all my mail to the General Film Company. Mr. Boushey is the man who appointed me to the position that I have, so I naturally suppose he is the man in charge up there. We do not communicate with anyone directly, unless it is the auditor occasionally, something relative to an account. Q. Now, you get these films by having them shipped to you from the factories of the manufacturers located in Chi