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 #:
000503
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.

Warren R. Palmer, Redirect Examination. 2949 Redirect examination by Mr. Caldwell: Q. Now, Mr. Palmer, referring to these deferred payments, have they been made promptly as they became due? A. Always. Q. There is no payment that is overdue at the present time? A. None. Q. Are you still interested in those deferred payments, or have you sold out your interest? A. No, I have an equity. Q. The dividends on the preferred stock, have they been met promptly and paid? A. Yes, always. Q. Well, you may state whether that business was profitable or unprofitable up to 1909. A. It was profitable. Q. During the year 1909, until you became a licensed exchange, was your business growing? Were the profits continually growing up to that time? A. No. Mr. Grosvenor : I object to that as leading. Recross examination by Mr. Grosvenor: Q. Whom did you see when you came down to New York on June 20th? A. I believe, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Waters. I also remember Mr. Marvin was there. Q. That is in connection with the sale of your property? A. Yes. Q. And did those three gentlemen all discuss with you the question of making the sale? A. No, I believe only Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Waters. Q. Was Mr. Marvin present at the time? A. To the best of my recollection he was. Q. What was said to you? What did you say on the subject of selling your property? A. They asked us if we are ready to sell our exchange. WTe replied we were. They made us the offer, and we asked a few minutes to think it over. We came back and told them we wanted a thousand dollars more. They said the price that they had already offered us was the limit, and so we accepted. Q. What is the name of this man Blumenstiel? What is