General Film Company

The General Film Company was a film distribution company in the United States. Between 1909 and 1920, it was responsible for the distribution of almost 12,000 films.

The General Film Company was formed by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), in an attempt to monopolize distribution. In 1909, the General Film Company tried to seize the equipment of independent distribution companies to discourage their activities. [ [http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm "The Birth of the Movie and of the Recording Industries"] page 36, Chapter 2: Creation Under Competition of "Against Intellectual Monopoly", Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Cambridge University Press, July 7, 2008, ISBN 0521879280] Using their control over several film patents, the General Film Company and MPCC tried to force independent distribution companies to sell out or lose their patent licenses. [page 12 of [http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/economicHistory/pdf/wp7003.pdf "The decline and fall of the European film industry: sunk costs, market size, and market structure, 1890–1927"] , Gerben Bakker, The Economic History Review, Volume 58, Number 2, May 2005 , pp. 310-351(42), Blackwell Publishing] Competing organizations such as the Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Company, the National Independent Moving Picture Alliance and the Film Service Association emerged to challenge the trust. [ [http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/film_history/v019/19.3alvarez.pdf "The Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Company"] , Max Joseph Alvarez, Film History: An International Journal, Volume 19, Number 3, 2007, pp. 247-270, Indiana University Press.] The power of the General Film Company had declined by 1912, and the US Justice Department started prosecution of the MPCC and General Film Company under the Sherman Act. The General Film Company was sold, along with the MPPC, to the Lincoln & Parker Film Company of Massachusetts on March 30 1918. Thomas Edison reacquired these assets when the Lincoln & Parker company went bankrupt, and sold them to producer Robert L. Giffen in October 1919. [ [http://edison.rutgers.edu/chron2.htm#18 "Chronology: 1879-1931"] , [http://edison.rutgers.edu/index.htm Thomas A. Edison Papers] , Rutgers University]

References

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/company/co0003282/ IMDB article on the General Film Company]