Tougher Competition Law
The day before yesterday, in Joined Cases C‑403/08 and C‑429/08 (Premier League), the Court of Justice :
(i) failed to understand what a public good is;
(ii) further expanded the “object” box.
And a proposition: would I be a monopolistic supplier (like FAPL), I’d sell to one buyer only in the EU, at a very high price. Or I’d sell to all of them, at a very high, similar price (to limit arbitrage).
This case has been presented as a victory for market integration. I am afraid this is more of a knock-out.
Chillin'Competition 
I think in a more or less short period of time this will end up in some “cuttin out the middleman” strategy. One good example is the NBA with its own NBA TV, where you can watch the whole season broadcasted over the internet (it works great, but you need a fast internet-access). That way they could give monopoly prices direct to the consumer.
But maybe the “public good” character is worth a modification of the compulsory licensing judicature, or we state an “old product” rule: An old product which is widely spread on the market, could benefit competition and the consumers more than the new one (whose expansion is a governmental task), so we got a new “old” feature for the best of the consumers 🙂
Cristian Ehlenz
6 October 2011 at 9:41 am
Failing to grasp the notion of public good is bad, failing to understand what the exhaustion doctrine is (was) all about, is even worse!
Bagnole
7 October 2011 at 12:28 am
ECJ reasoning very poor throughout. They narrowly read the “for free” criteria in the definition of illicit device, lamentably failing to recognise it is all about free riding and arbitraging….
Also arguing that premiums for exclusivity are inappropriate whilst conceding that sporting events deserve protection is contraddictory. By the way, arguing that the broadcast of an English football match in England and Greece are the same product is laughable, they are different products: the latter’s equivalent would be the broadcast of a match of the Greek first league….
BTW, your website now shows SCAM banners!
Paolo Siciliani
10 October 2011 at 1:02 pm