| FTC v. Motion Picture Advertising Service Co. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued December 8, 1952 Decided February 2, 1953 | |
| Full case name | Federal Trade Commission v. Motion Picture Advertising Service Co., Inc. |
| Citations | 344 U.S. 392 (more) 73 S. Ct. 361; 97 L. Ed. 426 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | 47 F.T.C. 378 (1950); reversed, 194 F.2d 633 (5th Cir. 1952); cert. granted, 344 U.S. 811 (1952). |
| Subsequent | Rehearing denied, 345 U.S. 914 (1953). |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Douglas, joined by Vinson, Black, Reed, Jackson, Clark, Minton |
| Dissent | Frankfurter, joined by Burton |
| Laws applied | |
| Copyright Act of 1909 | |
FTC v. Motion Picture Advertising Service Co., 344 U.S. 392 (1953), (the MPAS case)[1] was a 1953 decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that, where exclusive output contracts used by one company "and the three other major companies have foreclosed to competitors 75 percent of all available outlets for this business throughout the United States" the practice is "a device which has sewed up a market so tightly for the benefit of a few [that it] falls within the prohibitions of the Sherman Act, and is therefore an 'unfair method of competition' " under § 5 of the FTC Act.[2] In so ruling, the Court extended the analysis under § 3 of the Clayton Act of requirements contracts that it made in the Standard Stations case to output contracts brought under the Sherman or FTC Acts.[3]
- ^ FTC v. Motion Picture Advertising Service Co., 344 U.S. 392 (1953), reversing 194 F.2d 633 (5th Cir. 1952), affirming 47 F.T.C. 378 (1950).
- ^ 344 U.S. at 395.
- ^ See Friedrich Kessler and Richard H. Stern, Competition, Contract, and Vertical Integration, 69 Yale L.J. 1, 59-60 (1959), which argues that the MPAS and Standard Stations cases indicate a coalescence between the standards of unlawfulness under the Sherman and Clayton Acts and for forward and backward (downstream and upstream) integration by contractual exclusive dealing arrangements.