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 6
Leaf #:
000677
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.

GENERAL INDEX. lxxxvii Motion Picture Patents Co., Continued: vol. page Letter, MacDonald & Bostwiek to Imperial Film Exchange, April 18, 1910; Petitioner's Exhibit 202 II 1089 Letters, Patents Co. to Greater New York Film Rental Co.; Petitioner's Exhibits 103 to 120, inclusive I 448 465 Letters, Patents Co. to Greater New York Film Rental Co.; Petitioner's Exhibits 137, 138, 140, 141, and 142 II 672 List of Licensed Manufacturers, Importers and Exchanges, contained in Circular to Licensed Exchanges, dated Feb. 24, 1909; Petitioner's Exhibit 13 I 52 List of Licensed Manufacturers, Importers and Exchanges, contained in Circular Letter to Exhibitors, dated Jan. 22, 1909; Petitioner's Exhibit 34 I 87 Additional List of Licensed Film Exchanges, contained in Notice to Exhibitors, Jan. 27, 1909; Petitioner's Exhibit 36 I 95 List of Licensed Manufacturers of Moving Picture Machines, Feb. 27, 1909; Petitioner's Exhibit 14 I 59 List of Film Exchanges whose Licenses were Cancelled or Terminated by the Patents Co. down to January, 1912; Petitioner's Exhibit t;i I L88