Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

39 Pages Posted: 28 Feb 2013 Last revised: 23 Jan 2014

See all articles by Thomas Jeffrey Horton

Thomas Jeffrey Horton

University of South Dakota, School of Law

Robert H. Lande

University of Baltimore - School of Law

Date Written: March 7, 2013

Abstract

This article examines whether the "old media" and the "new media", including the Internet, should be considered to be within the same relevant market for antitrust purposes. To do this the article first demonstrates that proper antitrust consideration of the role of non-price competition necessitates that “news” and “journalism” be analyzed in two distinct ways. First, every part of the operations of a newspaper (or other type of media source), including its investigative reporting and local coverage, should be assessed separately. We present empirical evidence collected for this study which demonstrates that the old media continues to win the vast majority of journalism awards. This and other evidence shows that the quality and variety of a number of specific old media functions are often so much better they should be considered distinct markets for antitrust purposes. Second, the evidence shows that the totality of what newspapers (or other media sources) do should be analyzed as a whole. This is because newspapers constitute a valuable form of “one stop shopping” for a diverse array of bundled journalism.

For both reasons newspapers often should continue to constitute separate markets for antitrust purposes. If antitrust decision makers accept arguments that the Internet should routinely be included within the same market as the traditional media, however, the media sector would become virtually exempt from the antitrust laws. This would be a prescription for disaster.

The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2350965

Keywords: Antitrust, Internet, media, newspapers, journalism, non-price competition, market definition

JEL Classification: K19, K23, K29, K39, L40, L44, L49, L82

Suggested Citation

Horton, Thomas Jeffrey and Lande, Robert H., Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws? (March 7, 2013). Florida Law Review, Vol. 65, pg. 1521, 2013, University of Baltimore School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2014-01, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2225399 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2225399

Thomas Jeffrey Horton

University of South Dakota, School of Law

414 East Clark St.
Vermillion, SD 57069-2307
United States

Robert H. Lande (Contact Author)

University of Baltimore - School of Law ( email )

1420 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
United States

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