Re: Right of attribution

From: Tim Brennan <brennan[_at_]UMBC2.UMBC.EDU>
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 1994 15:59:30 -0500 (EST)

>David Dailey writes
>
>I've been wondering for some time about the relationship (in the eyes
>of the law) between academic scholarship and commerce. Given recent
>antitrust actions by the feds against private higher ed (primarily in
>areas of tuition and financial aid), is there any sense that the
>traditions of academic scholarship (e.g., cross-institutional
>collaborative research) are likely to run afoul of someone's concept
>of competitive fairplay? Specifically, if it is improper for
>institutions which compete in the marketplace of ideas to "conspire"
>to set tuitions, is it also unfair for them to conspire to do
>collaborative research?

My guess is that in most cases the number of researchers collaborating on a particular research project constitute to small a share of the relevant market of potential researchers in that area to warrant antitrust action. However, if, say, the set of microbiologists studying HIV colluded on the amounts of money they were specifying in their grant proposals to NIH, they probably would and certainly should be subject to prosecution under the antitrust laws.

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Tim Brennan                                                   ph: 410-455-3229
UMBC Policy Sciences                                         fax: 410-455-1095

5401 Wilkens Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21228-5398 Received on Wed Dec 07 1994 - 21:06:34 GMT