תחרות ופערי כוחות בשוק המוזיקה הדיגיטלי: חישוב מסלול מחדש

Much of music market activity today takes place on global digital platforms, such as YouTube. Holders of copyrights in musical works often contend that the shift to the digital distribution and consumption of original music has considerably decreased their income. To better understand and assess the accuracy of this argument, this article provides an in-depth legal and economic analysis of the contractual relations underlying the Israeli digital music market. It identifies serious power discrepancies between rights holders and digital platforms that should be addressed by the Israel Competition Authority. Because copyrights in musical works produced in Israel are managed mainly by collective management organizations, such as the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel (Acum), this research focuses on the discrepancies in bargaining power between these organizations and YouTube, the most dominant platform in the Israeli digital music market. The recent Amendment 21 to the Israeli Economic Competition Act, passed in January 2019, offers a new opportunity to analyze these power discrepancies. This amendment expands the legal definition of "monopoly" to include actors with significant market power. This article recommends that the Israel Competition Authority exercise its newly expanded authority and perform a thorough examination of YouTube's market power in general and, specifically, the exercise of its contractual bargaining powers against Israeli collective management organizations. Furthermore, the article suggests that this is an opportune time for the Israeli Competition Authority to follow global trends emerging in the United States and Europe and investigate the power of global digital platforms in the Israeli creative arts market.