The development of Internet and quasi-monopolistic market position of publishers dictating prices and limiting access to scientific, educational and cultural publications, as well as restricted budget possibilities of public institutions responsible for popularization of scientific studies results are the key prerequisites for launching Open Access initiative. Information and knowledge have the characteristic of common good, which ought to be available for everyone. In the study, the author considers the issue of reconfiguration of copyright in such way that it was more adequate for cyber era and at the same time - not deprive authors of all the due protection.
The article focuses on sharing intangible assets by enterprises with dominant positions at the markets of new technologies. It seems that the methods of make those assets available require a new approach, as well as the synthesis of two trends: orders issued by the government for dominants to share information and knowledge in cases when the lack of them would hamper other companies' economic activity (essential facility), with rank-and-file initiatives to share assets by enterprises who perceive this strategy as bringing long term benefits. The best example of those tendencies is the history of market strategies of the Microsoft company.
Competition policy needs taking into account the more economic approach to competition law, in particular with regard to IT and electronic communications, to deal with the problem of determining the dynamics of innovation. The challenging issues are those of applying Art.102 of the Treaty to, e.g.: essential facilities, imposing compulsory licenses, defining the collective market dominance, linked transactions, cartelization and concentration, as well as the determinants of effective consumer protection. Problems arising from the more economic approach in competition law are: the danger of relativization of rules; legal uncertainty; rising costs; length and complexity of procedures; conflict between the so-called per se. rule and rule of reason in the application of competition law; and designing optimally diversified rules and regulations to provide stable and secure competitive freedom to business. The use of economic knowledge in the field of competition law involved inspirations mostly from neoclassical equilibrium theory, while ideas belonging to development economics, behavioral economics, workable competition theory and strategic analysis were underrated. There is no unified theory of competition, but new approaches are developing, e,g, in industrial economics, new institutional economics and the Austrian School. But the lawmakers are often not clear about their goals and values which make them choose a particular theory. This leads to neglecting the development trends and the dynamic competition which promotes innovations in the economy.
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