Piracy in the Motion Picture Industry

This work begins with a discussion of some of the earliest cases of piracy in vaudeville. It then considers how the problem continued to grow exacerbated by the lack of legal resource available to performers, and the ways film exhibitors cheated the film distributors and companies and the measures that the distributors and companies took to prevent piracy over the years.

Also examined are the practices of American theater owners who tried to cheat Hollywood, especially through the practice known as bicycling--extra, unpaid for screenings of a legitimately held film--and altering paperwork to reduce the money owed to distributors on films screened on percentage contracts. Also examined, to a lesser degree, are Hollywood's own efforts to cheat, including the disregard of copyrights held by others.