Anti-Monopoly Research On Tie-in Of Academic Database

On December 26,2022,the State Administration of Market Supervision made a decision on administrative punishment according to law,clarifying that CNKI abused its dominant position to implement monopoly.From being investigated for suspected abuse of market position to being imposed administrative punishment,CNKI has aroused extensive discussion from all walks of life.The reason is that the ordering price of the large head database represented by CNKI has risen continuously in recent years,which makes it difficult for many universities and scientific research institutions to afford.The State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration identified the abuse of market dominance by How Net as unfair high price and refusal to trade,and did not pay attention to tying.However,a considerable part of the high subscription cost of academic databases comes from the journals that are tied up by academic database operators,and the tying up of academic databases has become the norm in the industry,both in Chinese and foreign languages.Therefore,the tying of academic databases should be paid attention to and regulated.Earlier,scholars have paid attention to this issue,but have not studied it in depth.The tying of academic databases is only limited to raising questions,and has not provided specific solutions in theory and practice.Under the background that CNKI has been punished at present,it is an inevitable trend to attach importance to the research and analysis of tying behavior of academic databases.Academic databases are quite different from traditional products because of their main characteristics.It owns the copyright of many journals because of its large purchase of academic journals,forming a legal monopoly advantage of intellectual property rights,and is highly related to academic evaluation.Therefore,it is authoritative and professional,and universities and scientific research institutions are very dependent on it.These factors lead to that when determining the tying behavior of academic databases at the level of anti-monopoly law,the judgment path of traditional product tying behavior is not completely applicable to academic databases.It is mainly manifested in two levels.The first level is the definition of the market scope of products related to academic databases.For academic databases,which have strong user stickiness and collective attributes of intellectual property,it is limited to use the traditional supply-demand substitution analysis method and SSNIP test method to define the market scope,because academic databases do not compete with price.The second level is that it is difficult to analyze the product independence standard and market competition effect of academic databases in terms of the constituent elements of tying.Therefore,this paper attempts to discuss the current identification of tying behavior of academic databases from two aspects,and is committed to solving the problem of identification of tying behavior,so as to provide a reasonable and feasible analysis paradigm for the analysis and judgment of tying behavior of such special subjects as academic databases,and provide support for practice,mainly from the following parts.The first part is the introduction,which first puts forward the problem,and then summarizes and comments on the current research status of the problem in the academic community,as well as how this paper will carry out research,innovation and deficiencies in the research.Taking CNKI as a case to open,it reveals that the tying of academic databases has not attracted the attention of the authorities,and with relevant cases to prove that the tying of academic databases is a common behavior,so it is necessary to analyze and study the tying of academic databases.Then it sorts out and discusses the relevant literature related to the abuse of market dominance and tying of academic databases.The second part is to describe the actual performance of tying of academic databases.This paper classifies and describes the current tying mode of academic databases,mainly including the tying sales of paper journals,the tying sales of maintaining the original order quantity,and the tying sales of new products.And compare academic database tying with traditional commodities,and analyze the characteristics of academic database tying.Then it analyzes the positive and negative effects of this behavior,and demonstrates that academic databases need to be regulated by anti-monopoly law through comparison,that is,it is reasonable and legitimate to regulate them.The third part is to study the dilemma of the current academic database tying behavior under the existing legal framework.Sort out the relevant legal provisions of the tie-in at present,and interpret and apply the legal provisions.When applying the current laws and regulations,there are difficulties in the specific judgment of academic databases: the limitations of the traditional method of determining the dominant position of the market,the unadaptability of the criteria for judging the independence of products due to the characteristics of academic databases,and the judgment of the effect of restricting competition are all problems that need to be solved by the current laws and regulations.The fourth part is the responsibility of academic database for tying.It mainly includes civil liability,administrative liability and criminal liability.This paper expounds the content of the responsibility of conduct from the legal provisions,and points out the shortcomings in the process of assuming responsibility.The fifth part is to put forward corresponding solutions to the legal regulation of tying of academic databases.Make an analysis and comparison between academic databases and the Internet.There are some similarities between the two.Therefore,in terms of the identification of tying behavior,make a certain analysis of Internet tying cases,and learn from the handling methods of the Internet in the same aspects.