United States v. American Express Co, No. 10-CV-4496, May 7, 2014 order, here.
Thursday, June 05, 2014
CJEU: The ‘temporary copies’ exception applies to on-screen and cached copies
C‑360/13 Public Relations Consultants Association Ltd v Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd and Others, here.
AG: A Member State can authorise libraries to digitise books and make them available at electronic reading posts
C-117/13 Technische Universität Darmstadt v Eugen Ulmer KG Press Release here.
"...se contenter d’une simple offre du titulaire du droit d’auteur permettrait de subordonner l’application de ladite exception à des décisions unilatérales, ce qui, en conséquence, priverait l’exception d’effet utile pour les établissements concernés. L’interprétation téléologique, quant à elle, exige également, compte tenu de l’objectif d’intérêt général poursuivi par le législateur de l’Union, à savoir promouvoir la diffusion du savoir et de la culture, que l’utilisateur puisse invoquer cette exception (24).
"...se contenter d’une simple offre du titulaire du droit d’auteur permettrait de subordonner l’application de ladite exception à des décisions unilatérales, ce qui, en conséquence, priverait l’exception d’effet utile pour les établissements concernés. L’interprétation téléologique, quant à elle, exige également, compte tenu de l’objectif d’intérêt général poursuivi par le législateur de l’Union, à savoir promouvoir la diffusion du savoir et de la culture, que l’utilisateur puisse invoquer cette exception (24).
...
De la même façon qu’il est loisible à un utilisateur d’une bibliothèque, dans les limites posées par la législation nationale, de photocopier les pages des ouvrages physiques présents dans le fonds et à une bibliothèque de le permettre, l’utilisateur peut imprimer des pages d’une copie numérique et la bibliothèque peut le permettre (57)"
De la même façon qu’il est loisible à un utilisateur d’une bibliothèque, dans les limites posées par la législation nationale, de photocopier les pages des ouvrages physiques présents dans le fonds et à une bibliothèque de le permettre, l’utilisateur peut imprimer des pages d’une copie numérique et la bibliothèque peut le permettre (57)"
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
HRS Decision in English (retail MFN)
Bundeskartellamt, here. For "general" information purposes only.
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Monday, June 02, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
UN Special Rapporteur's concerns regarding Italy's online copyright enforcement
F. La Rue, here (Word file), p.13 f.
"The issue of intellectual property (...) was discussed during the visit and a number of concerns were raised regarding the adoption of additional measures for the protection of copyright at the expense of freedom of expression. For the Special Rapporteur, the establishment of norms protecting intellectual property should remain exclusively within the purview of the Parliament.
The Special Rapporteur also underlines that, although AGCOM may by law apply some limitations on online content, the removal of online content should be decided by the Court on a case-by-case basis."
"The issue of intellectual property (...) was discussed during the visit and a number of concerns were raised regarding the adoption of additional measures for the protection of copyright at the expense of freedom of expression. For the Special Rapporteur, the establishment of norms protecting intellectual property should remain exclusively within the purview of the Parliament.
The Special Rapporteur also underlines that, although AGCOM may by law apply some limitations on online content, the removal of online content should be decided by the Court on a case-by-case basis."
Old friends in new frocks? MFN clauses in the online hotel booking sector/19
(Previous installments here)
From a more evolutionary perspective, it is also noteworthy
that in an era of big data firms at the different levels of the value chain have the potential to constantly gain better market insights.
Based on the results of data analysis, both producers and intermediaries may experiment by way of fine tuning their marketing
practices. In some respect, the uninterrupted and abundant flow of real-time, potentially
insightful data makes it imperative for every market participant to continually experiment and adapt.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Old friends in new frocks? MFN clauses in the online hotel booking sector/18
(Previous installments here)
Finally, and more generally, it would be unreasonable to turn a blind
eye to the fact that the economic value extracted from consumers’ personal data is
essential to many Internet entrepreneurs. Safeguarding competition in an era of
big data requires a detailed understanding of how exactly user information fits
into these firms’ business models.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Making Your Privacy Practices Public
K. Harris, Attorney General, California Department of Justice, here.
Does Google want to own the online travel-booking market?
TheEconomist, here.
This is the comment I left on the Economist's website: "As possible game changers, also worth mentioning are the investigations and decisions by competition authorities in the online hotel booking sector.They could make advertising in Google less crucial..."
This is the comment I left on the Economist's website: "As possible game changers, also worth mentioning are the investigations and decisions by competition authorities in the online hotel booking sector.They could make advertising in Google less crucial..."
Old friends in new frocks? MFN clauses in the online hotel booking sector/17
(Previous installments here)
This and other anticompetitive potentials of retail-price MFNs may be strengthened in the presence of a network of such clauses. Thus, the German Competition Authority found that the vast majority of hotels in Germany was under a retail MFN obligation with at least one of the three most popular hotel booking platforms, and this made practically impossible for an entrant platform to pursue a “consumers’ side” initiation/growth strategy based on commission-cuts and lower display prices.
This and other anticompetitive potentials of retail-price MFNs may be strengthened in the presence of a network of such clauses. Thus, the German Competition Authority found that the vast majority of hotels in Germany was under a retail MFN obligation with at least one of the three most popular hotel booking platforms, and this made practically impossible for an entrant platform to pursue a “consumers’ side” initiation/growth strategy based on commission-cuts and lower display prices.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Nespresso s'engage : le droit de la concurrence l'emporte-t-il ? Pas vraiment !
C. Bialès, M. Bechini, F.-X. Boudy, M. Carbonnel,G. de Boiscuillé, T. Schrepel, ici.
Old friends in new frocks? MFN clauses in the online hotel booking sector/16
(Previous installments here)
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Old friends in new frocks? MFN clauses in the online hotel booking sector/15
(Previous installments here)
First, we have seen that there are “spillover” effects from retail
MFNs for other platforms and channels. In a context of seller-imposed retail
prices, or “agency” model, a single
wide MFN clause between a seller and a platform effectively prevents any other
platform from displaying prices lower than the MFN’d price (e.g. cheaper hotel
room rates, lower insurance premiums, etc.), thus creating a floor – or minimum
- price.
By contrast, agency pricing as such is not necessarily conducive to rate parity, or price
fixing, since it could well be in the seller’s interest to display different prices
on different platforms. Thus, for instance, the mobile game Hundreds is priced CHF5.00 on iTunes and CHF4.75 on Google Play, while the price of the racing
game Impossible Road is the same on both platforms.
Actually, competition authorities in the UK and Germany have
expressed serious concerns exactly because
retail MFN clauses prevent expansion and entry strategies by platforms based on
“selective” lower hotel prices and insurance premiums. In
fact, due to the spillover effects of wide MFNs, an online retailer cannot use
its ability to compete on commissions (or margins) in order to enter the market
and try to achieve the critical mass necessary for the platform to survive and, possibly, to thrive. Instead,
still under agency but without retail
MFNs, the same retailer could pursue a strategy of lowering the commission rate
applied to the seller with the expectation that the seller would then display
lower prices on the more cost-effective platform.
(To be continued)
Monday, May 19, 2014
Friday, May 16, 2014
Most-Favored-Nation Clauses Revisited: Legal and Economic Analysis and Proposal for a Guideline
G. Gürkaynak, A. Güner, J. Filson, S. Diniz, here (Word file).
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Old friends in new frocks? MFN clauses in the online hotel booking sector/14
(Previous installments here)
In conclusion, and based on the above reflections, some
tentative answers to the central question of this serial: What is really new about retail MFN clauses?
For years already, competition/antitrust circles have discussed
whether anticompetitive motives and efficiency justifications underlying the
adoption of vertical restraints in the off-line world equally applied to
on-line sales. Thus, for instance, most participants in an OECD roundtable on vertical
restraints for on-line sales agreed that “a new economic and regulatory
framework was not needed to assess the competitive implications of vertical
restraints” in the Internet economy. After all, as recently argued by Alexander
Italiener, the EC Director-General for Competition, some of the actual issues emerging
from e-commerce, such as how to deal with on-line resellers accused of
free-riding on others’ promotional efforts, are hardly a novelty. Differences
in scale and speed notwithstanding, mail order companies in the pre-Internet
time were accused of doing broadly the same.
With regard specifically to retail MFN clauses as used by multi-sided platforms, before asking questions
about the suitability of our current economic and regulatory framework in order
assess them, it should be noted that this type of vertical restraint might raise some "original" competition concerns.
(To be continued)
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Old friends in new frocks? MFN clauses in the online hotel booking sector/13
(Previous installments here)
Notwithstanding, the Competition Commission validly argues that narrow MFNs are much less a cause for concern than wide MFNs. Generally, under narrow MFNs, competition between PCWs is not critically restricted, since PMI providers can quote different premiums on different PCWs. Nor is entry to the PCW market substantially hampered, since insurers can pass through to lower prices the smaller CPA fees required by new entrants. Moreover, an innovative PCW can still be “rewarded” by the insurer by quoting a lower price on the PCW’s platform.
The Commission also recognizes that, under specific circumstances, there might still be some tangible anticompetitive effects. However, as seen above, the Commission maintains that, at present, narrow MFNs impose significant network effects only in very few instances, and, therefore, their overall impact on the market is much limited. The Commission’s reasoning is not totally convincing, though. In particular, the widespread use of retail MFN clauses in the MPI industry could have hampered the development of the insurer’s direct sales channel. This means that it cannot be excluded that, once any type of MFN clause banned, the insurer will have more incentives to invest in making her own direct online channel grow.
At any rate, when a narrow MFN clause produces anticompetitive effects, it might still be possible to demonstrate the occurrence of specific efficiencies outweighing the harm to competition. Thus, it could be alleged that narrow MFNs prevent the insurer from free-riding on PCW’s investments. However, there might be alternative, less restrictive mechanisms than a narrow MFN clause to prevent this from occurring. For instance, consumers that use the PCW’s facilities for search and then purchase on the insurer’s website are rather easily identifiable by way of cookies or other means, and the contract between the insurer and the PCW can require that also in this case a fee must be paid to the latter.
Notwithstanding, the Competition Commission validly argues that narrow MFNs are much less a cause for concern than wide MFNs. Generally, under narrow MFNs, competition between PCWs is not critically restricted, since PMI providers can quote different premiums on different PCWs. Nor is entry to the PCW market substantially hampered, since insurers can pass through to lower prices the smaller CPA fees required by new entrants. Moreover, an innovative PCW can still be “rewarded” by the insurer by quoting a lower price on the PCW’s platform.
The Commission also recognizes that, under specific circumstances, there might still be some tangible anticompetitive effects. However, as seen above, the Commission maintains that, at present, narrow MFNs impose significant network effects only in very few instances, and, therefore, their overall impact on the market is much limited. The Commission’s reasoning is not totally convincing, though. In particular, the widespread use of retail MFN clauses in the MPI industry could have hampered the development of the insurer’s direct sales channel. This means that it cannot be excluded that, once any type of MFN clause banned, the insurer will have more incentives to invest in making her own direct online channel grow.
At any rate, when a narrow MFN clause produces anticompetitive effects, it might still be possible to demonstrate the occurrence of specific efficiencies outweighing the harm to competition. Thus, it could be alleged that narrow MFNs prevent the insurer from free-riding on PCW’s investments. However, there might be alternative, less restrictive mechanisms than a narrow MFN clause to prevent this from occurring. For instance, consumers that use the PCW’s facilities for search and then purchase on the insurer’s website are rather easily identifiable by way of cookies or other means, and the contract between the insurer and the PCW can require that also in this case a fee must be paid to the latter.
(To be continued)
FAZ: Ausgewogener Journalismus oder persönliche Kampagne gegen Google?
14. Mai 2014
Europäischer Gerichtshof bekräftigt "Recht auf Vergessenwerden" , S. 1:
Die Welt ist keine Google, S. 1;
Im Netz verweht, S. 2;
Strassburger Applaus, S. 2;
Ehrverletzende Vorschläge, S. 2;
Leben, um es auch wieder vergessen zu können, S. 9;
Internetnutzer können persönliche Daten löschen lassen, S. 15;
Daten wie Wasser, S. 15.
Europäischer Gerichtshof bekräftigt "Recht auf Vergessenwerden" , S. 1:
Die Welt ist keine Google, S. 1;
Im Netz verweht, S. 2;
Strassburger Applaus, S. 2;
Ehrverletzende Vorschläge, S. 2;
Leben, um es auch wieder vergessen zu können, S. 9;
Internetnutzer können persönliche Daten löschen lassen, S. 15;
Daten wie Wasser, S. 15.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
A New Privacy Paradox: Young people and privacy on social network sites
G. Blank, G. Bolsover, E. Dubois, here.
Monday, May 12, 2014
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Ofcom.org.uk, here .
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EnGadget, here . Qualcomm's Answer and Counterclaims here . -
T. McSweeny, here.
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G. Soros, here.
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Los Angeles Times, here .
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Technology Review, here .
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Deutscher Bundestag, hier . S. auch Entschließungsantrag der Grünen, hier .
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OECD Digital Economy Papers, here .
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G. Massarotto, here .
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J. Brill, here . Video, here (featuring also Bill Kovacic).