Motion Picture Patents Company

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The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908, was a trust of all the major film companies (Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, Selig, Lubin, Kalem, American Star, American Pathé), the leading distributor (George Kleine) and the biggest supplier of raw film, Eastman Kodak.

At the time of the formation of the MPPC, Thomas Edison owned most of the major patents relating to motion pictures, especially that for raw film. The MPPC vigorously enforced its patents, constantly bringing suits and receiving injunctions against independent filmmakers. The MPPC also instituted vigorous production rules for films, including a duration of one reel and no crediting for casts and crews.

Many filmmakers responded by moving their operations to Hollywood, whose distance from Edison's home base of New Jersey made it more difficult for the MPPC to enforce its patents.^[1] The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers the area, was averse to enforcing patent claims.^{[citation needed]} Southern California was also chosen because of its beautiful year-round weather and varied countryside, which could stand in for deserts, jungles and great mountains.

The reasons for The MPPC's decline are manifold. The most important ones are its misjudgement of its own consumers' interests, and the quick rise of the so-called "Independents" (who later became the Second Oligopoly). The Independents began crediting the actors in their films beginning in about 1910; the MPPC had decided against crediting the actors because they realized that making the players famous meant having to pay them more. However, they had failed to grasp that audience's desire to see their favorite film stars would allow them both to recoup and profit from the investment in name actors. (Edison, one of the most famous men in America, believed that his would be the name that mattered to consumers.) To that end, the Independent studios were able to create bankable film stars, and audiences lost interest in films with unnameable actors.

There were also decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, in particular one in 1912, which cancelled the patent on raw film, and a second in 1915, which cancelled all MPPC patents. A later suit under the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1917 ended the oligopoly, but by then, the MPPC was already defeated.

[edit] See also

History of cinema

[edit] References

^ "La-La Land: The Origins" Peter Edidin. New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Aug 21, 2005. pg. 4.2. "Los Angeles's distance from New York was also comforting to independent film producers, making it easier for them to avoid being harassed or sued by the Motion Picture Patents Company, a k a the Trust, which Thomas Edison helped create in 1909."