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ElliottPaper1 21 - 10 Dec 2008 - Main.JohnPowerHely
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The Lexis/Westlaw Duopoly and the Proprietization of Legal Research | | | Of course, Lexis/Westlaw don't legally own the law. Statutes, regulations, and opinions are produced by agents of the democratic government and enter immediately into the public domain, regardless of public availability.
- Not of course. This is true of federal publications. But state legalpublications can be copyrighted. Thomson/West/Reuters' predecessor in interest, West Publishing Company, was the proprietary publisher of state reports from the 1880s, which is how the company built its fortune.
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- -- JohnPowerHely - There have been some halfhearted attempts to fix this. See H. R. 1584, 104th Congress. In the past 56 years only this and a companion bill have been proposed, and neither made it out of committee.
| | | The value added by Lexis/Westlaw is research efficiency--an electronic search of an online database is infinitely cheaper than scouring filing cabinets at a courthouse or library. The Lexis/Westlaw duopoly does not face a serious rival entrant because the costs of building a minimally comparable database from scratch present a prohibitive barrier to entry. At the same time, digital databases operate at increasing returns to scale, so the existing incumbents can easily underprice rival entrants and put them out of business. | | |
- This assumes a degree of difficulty in learning how to perform searches that could only be itself the result of ignorance. It is easier to learn enough about databases to make learning to search productively with either (or with something else) largely transferrable.
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- -- JohnPowerHely - What of the fact that the two platforms are not completely equivalent in terms of database coverage? I would be interested in seeing some data on whether or not the difference in coverage of briefs and secondary legal materials has an effect on legal scholarship, and if individuals who are more proficient with one than the other will cite to sources from that product.
| | | Neither Lexis/Westlaw offers an optional modification mimicking the other platform's interface, implying collusion. In the event of collusion, Lexis/Westlaw are incentivized to arbitrarily differentiate their platforms' interfaces. If the platforms had identical (or interchangeable) interfaces, habituated users could costlessly swap platforms, precluding the extraction of monopoly rents. This dynamic can be observed in the functionally equivalent but symbolically differentiated search terms implemented by Lexis and Westlaw. Relatedly, Lexis/Westlaw have a standalone incentive to complicate their platforms. The more complicated a platform, the more platform-specific human capital can be invested, and correspondingly the higher the monopoly tax that can be extracted. This hypothesis is confirmed by a passing glance at Lexis/Westlaw's cluttered interfaces (Cf. Precydent's 's parsimonious appearance). | | | sure too?
- Some think that wikis would be well-used for, say, treatises. I think there's not much value in putting all our caselaw in wikis--a special-purpose annotator might be better, because there shouldn't be any reason for The Public to go around changing the text of opinions. -- DanielHarris - 15 Nov 2008
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> | *-- JohnPowerHely - Daniel - I'd agree that The Public shouldn't be able to change the text of opinions, but just as WestLaw? has KeyCites? and Lexis has Headnotes (or is it Header Notes?), an open source wiki version could have its own case notes and synopses.
- Elliot - "non-functional digital goods (like legal information) are superiorly distributed anarchistically" - legal information is a non-functional good more akin to music than coding? I'm not saying you're wrong or right, but I'm still a little shocked (and kinda wondering why we are all putting in so much time and money here at CLS if that is the case). |
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