Keywords
Press publishers, Press publishers’ right, Copyright in Digital Single Market Directive, French Competition Authority, Abuse of dominant position, platforms
Abstract
This case comment discusses a set of decisions issued by the Autorité de la concurrence (the French Competition Authority, FCA) regarding Google’s conduct vis-à-vis press publishers. The analysis concerns Google’s refusal to respect its obligations, resulting from the Digital Single Market Directive of in 2019, regarding the press publishers’ exclusive right concerning the online use of their press publications, as well as its further implications. Moreover, it involves also systemic observations and broader market context. The objective of this case comment is to discuss the FCA’s decisions, and more broadly, to identify further systemic consequences these decisions may bring for EU competition law. In this broader context, we discuss and comment on the effectiveness of the discussed rights of press publishers, the adequacy of competition law to address their potential ineffectiveness, the policy choices made by the FCA when deciding on which types of enforcement decision to use, the new developments the decisions of the FCA may bring to the debate regarding the intersection between competition law and intellectual property rights IPRs), and the decisions’ contribution to the discussion regarding the inclusion of so-called non-economic concerns (such as media pluralism) in the application of competition law and competitive assessment. The choice of the commented decisions is justified by their topicality and importance from the market perspective.
Acknowledgements
Funding
This article received no funding
The cost of editing selected articles published in the Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies in the 2022–2024 is covered by funding under the program “Development of scientific journals” of the Ministry of Education and Science under agreement No. RCN/SN/0324/2021/1. Task title: “Verification and correction of scientific articles and their abstracts”. Funding value: 36 298,00 PLN; The task consists of professional editing of articles published in English.
Declaration of Conflict of interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of this article.
Declaration about the scope of AI utilisation
The author did not use AI tools in the preparation of this article.
Recommended Citation
Kowala, M., & Malaga, M. (2024). Press publishers’ right and competition law. Case comment on the French Competition Authority’s decisions against Google. Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies, 17(30), 199-223. https://doi.org/10.7172/1689-9024.YARS.2024.17.30.8
First Page
199
Last Page
223
Page Count
25
Received Date
29.03.2024
Accepted Date
08.08.2024
DOI
10.7172/1689-9024.YARS.2024.17.30.8
JEL Code
K21, K24, O34
Publisher
University of Warsaw
