Chillin'Competition

I post below the slides of our conference on the Google Book Settlement. It was a very good, stimulating, event.  I wish to thank again all the speakers, in particular J. Grimmelmann who flew from NY to attend, and P. Samuelson, who accepted to speak at 6.00 am, California time.

Like I said at the conference, the GBS is a textbook example of an issue that, under competition standards, may warrant regulatory intervention: (i) intricate pricing issues; (ii) enormous fixed costs and unmatchable incumbency advantages; (iii) universal service – and other policy-related – issues (availability to users inside and outside the US, privacy, risks of disruption of service, censorship, etc.). Too early to tell, but in the future, Google’s digital library may exhibit the features of a good old essential facility.

Slides A Strowel – The GBS – A True Digital Library

Slides H Muller – The view of IFLA on the GBS

Slides I Forrester – GBS – A Good Thing or a Bad Thing

Slides J Grimmelmann – Perspectives on the Settlement

Slides P Samuelson – How Fair is the GBS

(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)