Column: Klaske de Jonge, Director Dutch Consumers' Association

Consumers tied to iPod for life

A customer who buys a song via iTunes will have to buy iPods for the rest of his or her life in order to continue to enjoy that song. The most popular Internet music store is coupled to the most popular music player, both from Apple. Due to the technical limitations of these two products, consumers are condemned to continue buying players from the same company that owns the store where they bought their music. In our opinion this is just wrong. We have therefore brought the case to the attention of the cartel police NMa (Dutch Competition Authority) on account of ‘abuse of significant market power’.

We approached the NMa to request a legal judgement on this issue of competition, which is a perfect example of a truck system. But we actually have another campaign strategy to break down unreasonable restrictions on music. We are trying to gain support from recording companies, artists, download sites and other parties in the entertainment industry for our view that everyone stands to benefit from music without unreasonable limitations. Consumers will profit from this because it means that they will be able to enjoy their music at any time and in any place without problems. And it will be advantageous to the entertainment industry because individuals will be less likely to resort to illegal downloading, in which case they are faced with no limitations whatsoever. And getting around restrictions (which is possible, but difficult and may lead to quality loss) is in fact not allowed!

Apple should be applauded for breaking open the market for music downloads with iTunes and iPod. But they should still act according to the rules. In Norway, a supervisory body has already stated that Apple is acting in violation of national law. I am curious what the NMa here in the Netherlands will decide about this matter.

Klaske de Jonge,
Director of the Consumentenbond (Netherlands Consumers’ Association)
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ENCORE Brown Bag with Professor Preston McAfee(California Institute of Technology) on Pricing

On March 15 ENCORE organizes a brown bag meeting wit professor Preston McAfee at the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

American Airlines changes fares 500,000 times per day. Gasoline varies as much as 15¢ per gallon over a two mile drive. How do companies determine prices? The main theory involves price discrimination, or value-based pricing, which involves charging each consumer what the market will bear. Sophisticated sellers create goods designed for specific groups of customers, selling intentionally damaged products to price-sensitive groups. The theory is illustrated with striking examples from IBM, airlines and more.

Professor McAfee is in the Netherlands by invitation of the Amsterdam Center for Law and Economics and will be the keynote speaker on the ACLE-conference ‘Strategic Firm-Authority Interaction in Antitrust, Merger Control and Regulation’ on March 16, 2007.

Participation is by invitation only.

Annual Conference on “Creativity and Competition”

The ENCORE Annual Conference "Creativity and Competition" will take place on April 12, 2007.
Venue: Koninklijke Schouwburg, The Hague

The conference website, including information about the plenary and parallel sessions, will be launched early March. Registration is free to the public and will be possible through the conference website.

ENCORE Workshop on Non-horizontal Mergers

This workshop will be held on 26 April, 2007. It will be a half-day program starting around 2 pm. The program, place and exact time will be announced soon on the ENCORE web-site.

Speakers include prof.dr. Jeffrey R. Church (University of Calgary) and prof.dr. Floris O.W. Vogelaar (University of Amsterdam).

ENCORE Summer Schools

ENCORE Schools are intensive courses in the field of Industrial Organization, in particular competition and regulation.

ENCORE Schools are taught at three levels: principles, intermediate, and graduate. The principles and intermediate schools are taught in Dutch, the graduate school is taught in English. Detailed information about the Summer Schools (including how to register) is available by clicking the links below:

Principles (in Dutch) data: July 9-13, 2007.

Intermediate (in Dutch) data: July 30- August 3, 2007.

The graduate Master class is in preparation and wil be announced soon.

Competition around the World

ACLE: Strategic Firm-Authority Interaction in Antitrust Merger Control and Regulation, March 16, 2007, for further information, click here.

Tilec: Competition workshop “Do Non-For-Profits make a difference?”
May 8, 2007, 13.30-17.30 Bezuidenhoutseweg 153 (room 408), The Hague. For further information, click here.

 
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On October 1st  2007 prof. dr. Wim Driehuis succeeded prof. dr. Jules Theeuwes as managing director of ENCORE. Drs. Audrey Peters succeeded Ms Hagar Roijackers as of November 1st 2007. 

The ENCORE staff now consists of the following people:

Prof. dr. Wim Driehuis – Managing Director

Dr. Maarten Pieter Schinkel – Academic Director

Drs. Audrey Peters – coordinator

Ms. Britta Duiker – assistant coordinator

 
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Associates Network

ENCORE is proud of its new associates network which first met in December 2006 in Hotel The Grand in Amsterdam. The associates advise the ENCORE management board.

The list of associates is published on the ENCORE-website. Associates, like the ENCORE-fellows, have special admittance to papers and other relevant information.

For further information click here.

studIO

ENCORE has taken the initiative to set up a covering organization named studIO, for both Dutch and Belgian students who take specific interest in Industrial Organization (IO).

Student organizations in the field of Economics such as Marketing and Financial Economics play an important role between studying at universities and colleges on the one hand and participating in society on the other. By organizing various activities, students orientate on their future. By setting up studIO, ENCORE aims at this target for students interested in IO.

In cooperation with IO-professors, (IO-)students will be involved in organizing interesting activities in the field of Industrial Organization.

For further information, click here.

 
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Recent Activities

ENCORE Brainstorm Session 'Developments in State Aid Control and Policy' (March 6, 2007)

The European Commission’s State Aid Action Plan (SAAP), launched in the Summer of 2005, induced a shift away from the legal, form-based approach towards a more economic, effects-based approach to State aid control. The so-called “refined economic approach” seeks to balance the costs and benefits of State aid by answering the following questions:

  • Is the State aid measure aimed at a clearly defined “objective of common interest” (e.g., correcting a market failure)?
  • Is the State aid measure the appropriate tool for achieving the objective (i.e., correcting the market failure)?; and
  • What is the effect of the State aid measure on competition and trade?

In this ENCORE brainstorm Rainer Nitsche (CRA International) discussed these open issues and also presented some tangible results of the SAAP. His comments were based on his ‘Study on methods to analyze the impact of State aid on competition’, written with Paul Heidhues (University of Bonn) for the European Commission and subsequent work in several working groups on State aid reform with State aid economists and lawyers.

Edwin Schotanus (Van Doorne Advocaten) discussed the current status of State aid rules for SGEI and the effects that different definitions of SG(E)I may have on competition by means of a case study.

The brainstorm session was held at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Participation was by invitation only.

Presentation Handbook Case Studies (March 2, 2007)

On March 2 ENCORE presented the first manuscript of the Handbook Case Studies on DG Competition Decisions, a joint project of Martin Carree and Andrea Guenster (Maastricht University) and Maarten Pieter Schinkel and Franceso Russo (University of Amsterdam).

The presentation was held at the NMa. Participation is by invitation only.

Workshop 'Dutch Housing Markets' (March 1, 2007)

On March 1 ENCORE organized the workshop 'Dutch Housing Markets'. Problems and solutions for both the buying and renting market were discussed. Policy makers and researchers engaged in a debate by means of policy documents, recent scientific views and initiatives from daily practice.

Keynote speakers were Rene van der Ent (Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment) and Johan Conijn (University of Amsterdam).

The workshop was attended by 50 people from the ENCORE network.

For further information click here.

Future of Telecom (November 2 and 3, 2006)

ENCORE, in cooperation with OPTA and TILEC, organized a small scale symposium to discuss the future of regulation in the emerging and converging markets for electronic communications. The symposium brought together a group of renowned experts from economic, legal, regulatory and technological disciplines.

The event was organized as a round-table for invited participants only, but had the possibility to attend and participate in the symposium through the ENCORE-web site, where presentations were webcasted and slide shows could be downloaded. Online, during the event, participants could post questions, that were forwarded to the speakers during the discussions.

For further information, click here.

 

 
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ENCORE Once More


This e-mail newsletter aims to inform about the activities of ENCORE, Economic Network for Competition and Regulation.

If you wish to unsubscribe, please send us an e-mail with 'unsubscribe' in the header.

ENCORE Activities

ENCORE organizes a variety of activities. The highlight each year is the annual conference. Other activities are:

brainstorms: this is a closed and informal meeting which aims at discussing a policy relevant subject in a free and open manner.

brown bags: during a brown bag, one international visitor has a central role. The visitor will tipically answer questions and discuss his/her recent research on policy bottlenecks with the participants. Like brainstorms, brown bags are closed meetings.

workshops: these are oppportunities for researchers and policy makers to exchange and share knowlegde on the basis of presentations and discussions. Workshops are open to the ENCORE network.

 

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience should you, despite our every effort to clean our address list from doubles, receive this message more than once.

 
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