In many economic and social situations, two groups of agents may interact through one or several intermediaries and prefer a larger pool of trading partners. Thus the interaction between the two groups exhibits indirect (or cross-side) network effects: agents of one group are better off when the number of agents in the other group increases […]
Platforms RSS feed for this section
Mobile industry in Google’s cross-hairs
By 6 March 2012 14
Though a late-comer to the mobile market, Google has nonetheless made a rather spectacular entrance. Android, its operating system for smartphones, is running on millions of mobile terminals manufactured by other companies under their own brands. The key to Google‘s success is the fact that Android is open-source, and thus freely distributed. This has allowed […]
A tale of Sheiks and cheques
By 5 March 2012 40
The Bulletin is a magazine for expatriates moving to or living in Belgium. In its issue of July 10, 2008, the magazine picked up a story that had already been reported in the Belgian and international press. The article described a police raid at the fourth floor of the Conrad Brussels hotel, which had been […]
Network effects and expectations: the Million Dollar Homepage story
By 2 February 2012 38
(Updated 25/02/2013) Network effects are ubiquitous in the digital economy. They refer to the idea that users prefer to be connected to a bigger network than to a smaller one. (For a more precise description of this concept, see the ‘Theory digest’ on this blog). It is when consumers value compatibility that bigger networks become more […]
The nascent e-books market: another illicit fragmentation of the internal market?
By 7 May 2011 0
In the Premier League case now before the Court of Justice of the EU (Cases C-403/08 and C-429/08, see also ipdigit), the Advocate General (AG), in her opinion of 3 February 2011, has highlighted the problem of fragmentation of the internal market by referring to the burgeoning e-books market. According to the AG (§ 186), […]
Markets for technology: big hopes and … big difficulties
By 27 October 2010 31
(Original publication: October 2010; updated in November 2012) It is widely agreed that one of the main economic roles of IP law is to create exclusive rights: exclusivity allows innovators to appropriate the returns from their invention and it is the prospect of such returns that gives them the incentives to engage in […]
Bokhylla.no, the Norwegian bookshelf: a model?
By 3 October 2010 0
On September 30, EFTA (by the way, do you remember the countries which are still members of the European Free Trade Association? do you know that EFTA was celebrating its 50th birthday in 2010 ? more on EFTA)… EFTA was thus organising a copyright conference at its Brussels HQ on “The Nordic Model – Extended […]