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)

Page scan 000416 from 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 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 #:
000416
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 12, 2024
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.

2866 Charles O. Baumann, Direct Examination. Q. Had your customers iucreased or diminished during the period intervening from February 1st, 1909, up to the time you sold your exchange in 1912? A. More than tripled. Q. What profits was the Empire Film Exchange making at the time you sold to the Mutual Film Corporation? A. A thousand dollars a week. Q. For how long a period had you been making a thousand dollars a week? A. A year and a half. Q. After the Empire Film Exchange began to deal exclusively in unlicensed motion pictures, did you and the President of the exchange, Mr. Kessel, organize a company for the manufacture of motion pictures? A. Yes. Q. About what time did you organize this company? A. February, 1909. Q. What was the name of the company which you organized for the manufacture of motion pictures? A. New York Motion Picture Company. Q. Who were the officers of the New York Motion Picture Company? A. A. Kessel, Jr., Fred J. Balshofer and myself. Q. Wrhat positions did they occupy? A. Mr. Kessel, President; Mr. Balshofer, Vice-President; and myself, Secretary and Treasurer. Q. Did you have a studio? A. We had no studio. Q. What steps did you take in 1909 to produce motion pictures? A. Taking exterior scenes principally, and used what is known as an outdoor studio in early 1909. Q. Did you subsequently obtain a studio? A. Yes. Q. Where was that located? A. Los Angeles, California. Q. At what time in 1909 did the New York Motion Picture Company begin to produce motion pictures? A. March. Q. How many releases did you begin with? A. Began with one release, in May. Q. Did you subsequently increase the number of your releases? A. Yes, sir. Q. How soon after May did you increase the number? A. In the Fall of 1909. Q. At that time bow many releases did you have? A. Two releases. Q. Did you subsequently increase that number? A. Yes. Q. To what extent did you increase the number of re