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that an agreement between motion picture distributors to refuse to contract except on the standard form providing for compulsory arbitration and joint action in dealings with exhibitors was held to have been properly enjoined by the Court below, that where under the guise of arbitration parties enter into unusual arrangements unreasonably suppressive to normal competition their action becomes illegal and it is not necessary to establish that the parties to the arrangement are discontented therewith. Nor are the prohibitions of the Anti-Trust Statute capable of being evaded by good motives, that law being its own measure of right and wrong.
In the secondly mentioned case United States v. First National, an agreement between motion picture distributors to refrain from making new contracts with purchasers of theatres without security until reasonable adjustment of old contracts had been accomplished was held unlawful.
And in the thirdly mentioned case of Majestic v. United States it was held that an agreement between distributors not to supply motion picture films to exhibitors except upon the basis of the standard exhibition contract thereby imposing a condition upon the exhibitors’ access to the market, was held to be an unlawful combination in restraint of trade and contrary to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Having read these cases with care, as already stated, I am of the opinion that the facts in each of them, as apparently established by the evidence, go further than the facts in this case, and that m any event as already indicated, they are decisions under a statute fundamentally different from our own statute, and therefore are not safe guides to be followed by me in disposing of the questions Involved in this prosecution, and that the attempt made in the present case to have the Court go the length that these decisions 0 would not be justified by any Canadian or English decision that I am aware of.
But what is the foundation in fact for the contention made by counsel for the Crown?There is nothing to indicate that Famous Players were or are responsible for the existence of the Cooper mete or that they dominated or controlled its operations. Oe coe of the latter had to do with many matters besides Re at a In the evidence, such as censorship, adjustment Nari ue aX, performing rights in music, children’s shows and ane ers in which the exhibitor was chiefly concerned. And
€ evidence is that the Famous Players members of the Associa
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