antitrust

Content tagged with "antitrust"

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Your Antimonopoly Reading List

In a recent presentation to ILSR staff, Christopher Mitchell, Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative, shared key takeaways from six recent books on monopoly power in the United States. While the books share similar themes — the history of antitrust policy, the impact of monopolies on our everyday lives — each one has a slightly different focus within the American antitrust movement.

This presentation is not meant to be comprehensive and assumes a basic background in monopoly policy discussions. We think all of these books offer important contributions to our understanding of what the problems are and how to deal with them.

  • Liberty from All Masters: The New American Autocracy vs. the Will of the People by Barry Lynn
  • Break ‘Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money by Zephyr Teachout
  • The Curse of Bigness:Antitrust in the New Gilded Age by Tim Wu
  • Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy by Matt Stoller
  • Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power by David Dayen
  • Monopolies Suck: 7 Ways Big Corporations Rule Your Life and How to Take Back Control by Sally Hubbard

Watch the full discussion below:

Related ILSR Resources:

Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 270

This is the transcript for episode 270 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Professor Barbara Cherry goes into detail on the history of common carriage and telecommunications law. Listen to this episode here.

Barbara Cherry: It's been a mess. And part of the problem is restoring a more accurate understanding of our history.

Lisa Gonzalez: This is Episode 270 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez this week Christopher talks with attorney and legal scholar Barb Cherry about common carriage. We often talk about common carriage as it relates to telecommunications. And this week Christopher and Barb get into the policy. But most of us aren't aware of the legal history behind common carriage. Barb describes how its origins relate to the way it's applied today and how we need to consider the past as we move toward the future. Now here's Christopher and Barb Cherry.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance up in Minneapolis. Today I'm speaking with Barb Cherry a lawyer and a Ph.D. in communications who worked for the FCC for five years has 15 years in industry but is now a professor at the media school at Indiana University. Welcome to the show.

Barbara Cherry: Thank you, Chris.

Christopher Mitchell: Barb, one of the things I've warned you about. I'll tell the audience that you have an incredible amount of knowledge and you're very passionate. And so if this seems like it's getting a little bit too you know, friendly I might poke you a little bit to get some of that passion up on the surface.

Barbara Cherry: No problem.

Christopher Mitchell: Let's talk about common carriage which is something that I've never heard anyone explain as well as you have and and maybe you can just start with giving us a sense of the historical origins of common carriage in general.

Uncommon Knowledge of Common Carriage - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 270

The modern fight over network neutrality isn't a few years old. It is well over 1,000 years old across a variety of infrastructures and is totally wrapped up in a legal concept known as common carriage that has governed many kinds of "carriers" over the years. Few, if any, are as conversant in this subject as Barbara Cherry - a lawyer and PH.D in communications. She has worked in industry for 15 years, at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for five years, and is currently a professor in the Media School at Indiana University.

One of the key points of our conversation is regarding the problems with media shortening the Network Neutrality policy fights as turning the Internet into a "public utility."  Barbara helps us to understand how common carriage is distinct from public utility regulation and why common carriage regulation is necessary even in markets that may have adequate competition and choices.

We also talk about the history of common carriage and the importance of what might seem like outdated law from the days of the telegraph. 

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 258

This is the transcript for episode 258 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. Researchers from the Roosevelt Institute join our host Christopher Mitchell to discuss antitrust policy and Internet access. Listen to this episode here.

Marshall Steinbaum: This is us choosing a set of policies that is the worst of both worlds, that is both deregulatory and anti-competitive. Instead you can do both.

Lisa Gonzalez: This is episode 258 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez. This week Christopher visits with two other policy folk from the Roosevelt Institute, Marshall Steinbaum and Rakeen Mabud. Earlier this year the Roosevelt Institute released a report that examines how antitrust enforcement has changed and how those changes have impacted the telecommunications industry. Christopher, Marshall and Rakeen consider how that approach has affected people who may or may not subscribe to Internet access services. You can download the report and learn more about the organization at rooseveltinstitute.org. Now here are Christopher with Marshall Steinbaum and Rakeen Mabud.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell and today I'm speaking with two folks from the Roosevelt Institute. Marshall Steinbaum, the senior economist and fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Welcome to the show.

Marshall Steinbaum: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Christopher Mitchell: We also have Rakeen Mabud, the program director at Roosevelt Institute. Welcome to the show.

Rakeen Mabud: Thanks, nice to be here.

Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 250

This is the transcript for episode 250 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Gary Reback, author of Free the Market: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive, joins the show to discuss antitrust law. Listen to this episode here.

Christopher Mitchell: I think we have some consensus that maybe the lack of antitrust enforcement has been going on too long and we're beginning to have some problems that need to be addressed.

Lisa Gonzalez: This is episode 250 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. From the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I'm Lisa Gonzalez. In this week's episode, Christoper talks with Gary Reback, attorney and author. Gary's been called the protector of the marketplace and the antitrust champion for his work representing some of Silicon Valley's best-known companies. Gary and Christopher talk about antitrust, concentration of power and the different ways shifts in antitrust enforcement negatively impact both consumers and the market as a whole. Let's get to it.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell. Today, I'm speaking with Gary Reback, a well-known Silicon Valley lawyer. Welcome to the show, Gary.

Gary Reback: Thank you.

Christopher Mitchell: I'm excited to have you on the show. You're well-known for being very involved in getting the government to sue Microsoft and for writing a book that actually came to me at a really good time about seven years ago called Free

the Market!: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive. I really enjoyed that book, highly recommend it. For our audience's sake, we're not going to talk much about broadband in this conversation. But I think that many of these principles around competition in markets apply very strongly but it's something that will be sort of in the sideline. Gary, I'm curious if we can just start with a brief description of what you might describe as a working market before we spend the rest of our time talking about the markets that aren't working as well.

Policies to Make Markets Work - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 250

The larger focus of our work in the Community Broadband Networks Initiative is to ensure communities have the networks they need. Our guest for Community Broadband Bits episode 250 is an expert in how markets break and the policies that make them work. 

Gary Reback is a well known Silicon Valley lawyer and Of Counsel at Carr Ferrell LLP. He also wrote an excellent book, Free the Market: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive that I fully recommend. Reback has had a front-row seat to the failings of government policy that has allowed a few technology firms to garner so much market power today.

We talk broadly about markets and monopoly rather than focusing on broadband and telecommunications. This is a good introductory conversation for people unfamiliar with the real threat and harms of monopoly. 

A related conversation is my interview with Barry Lynn in episode 83.

This show is 25 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

Crossed Lines: Why the AT&T-Time Warner Merger Demands a New Approach to Antitrust

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As federal agencies examine the potential consequences if the AT&T - Time Warner merger is allowed to proceed, how we analyze antitrust also needs to be reevaluated. 

A new report from the Roosevelt Institute takes a closer look at how antitrust enforcement philosophy has changed, how that change has enabled our current state telecommunications in which a few large anticompetitive players control the market. The authors offer recommendations and cautionary predictions that may arise if we continue without reassessing how we scrutinize these large scale mergers.

Authors Marshall Steinbaum and Andrew Hwang complement each other with economic and legal approaches. Steinbaum is Senior Economist and Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and has also written for Democracy, Boston Review, The American Prospect, and The New Republic. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Economics Department in 2014. Hwang is a legal fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and has also been an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, working on transactions involving securities issuance, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate lending. He received his J.D. from the Duke University School of Law in 2014 and B.A. in economics and political science from the University of Chicago in 2011.

The report notes how scrutiny of mergers has come to depend on the perceived harm the results will have on consumers, but such a narrow focus results in harming competition.

Instead, regulators should adopt a more holistic view of market power, specifically incorporating analysis of upstream impact of anticompetitive behaviors, especially those enabled by mergers. This would entail closer scrutiny of vertical mergers, positive price discrimination, and non-price-based schemes to profit excessively by withholding access to consumers.

Several specific recommendations caught our attention as particularly relevant approaches, including:

Regulators should utilize Section 2 of the Sherman Act to a greater degree by taking enforcement actions against antitrust violators, up to and including undoing previous mergers that have proven anti-competitive after the fact.

The Cable UnBundling Challenge - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 241

One of the most recurring complaints about cable television is the bundles - people resent having to pay for channels that they do not watch. Especially when those cable prices go up consistently. The cable companies tend to absorb most of the blame and anger for this model, but they aren't entirely responsible.

To explain how the cable industry works, Public Knowledge Senior Counsel John Bergmayer joins us for Episode 241 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. We talk about overlapping monopolies, market power, and how the cable companies themselves are somewhat imprisoned by content owners. 

As fits with our focus, we also talk specifically about how smaller firms (which includes all municipal networks) are particularly harmed by the status quo and even more harmed by the ongoing consolidation of the largest cable companies becuase they then have far greater negotiating power. 

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Admiral Bob for the music. The song is Turbo Tornado (c) copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Blue Wave Theory.

Comcast Merger Wrap-up and Anti-Monopoly Policy - Community Broadband Bits Episode 148

In the aftermath of the Comcast/TWC merger being effectively denied by the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission, we thought it was a key moment to focus on antitrust/anti-monopoly policy in DC. To discuss this topic, we talk this week with Teddy Downey, Executive Editor and CEO of the Capitol Forum as well as Sally Hubbard, Capitol Forum senior correspondent and expert on antitrust. 

We start off with the basics of why the Comcast takeover of Time Warner Cable posed a problem that regulators were concerned with. From there, we talk more about the cable industry and whether other mergers will similarly alarm regulators. We end with a short discussion of what states can do to crack down on monopolies and the abuse of market power. 

Along the way, we discuss whether DC is entering a new era of antimonopoly policy or whether this merger was just uniquely troubling. We learned about Teddy and Sally from Barry Lynn at the New America Foundation, who we had previously interviewed for one of my favorite shows, episode 83

This show is 24 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Blues walk."

"Stop Mega Comcast" Coalition; Philly Comcast Subscribers Speak Out in New Video

As days go by, an increasing number of organizations, companies, and individuals go on record opposing the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger. The DOJ has already spent significant time analyzing the proposal and the FCC has been taking comments for months. On November 3rd, a new coalition, "Stop Mega Comcast," announced that it was jumping into the fray. 

Engadget reports that the group includes both consumer groups and competitors, including Dish Network and Public Knowledge:

"This much power concentrated in the hands of one company would be frightening even for the most trustworthy of companies," Public Knowledge's CEO Gene Kimmelman said in a statement. "And Comcast is definitely not that."

Certainly the people of Philadelphia could attest to the fact that Comcast is "not that." As we reported in episode #124 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast, the Media Mobilizing Project is working in Comcast's hometown to compel the cable giant to give back to a city it has already taken so much from.

Hannah Jane Sassaman described for us how the community is using franchise negotiations as leverage for better prices, better services, and more accountability from Comcast. Their project, CAPComcast, recently released this video wherein people straight from the Comcast service center describe their frustrations with the incumbent.