An Economy of Capture under Tension: The Case of Legal Publishers in Belgium
Dubois, Christophe
An Economy of Capture under Tension: The Case of Legal Publishers in Belgium - 2025.
56
This article depicts the oligopolistic system that offers access to a large part of legal information in Belgium. By describing the groups of actors populating the Belgian legal information market and analyzing their competitive and exchange relationships, we highlight the economy of “capture” that regulates this market. This economy relies on legal and sociotechnical lock-in strategies to capture clients and legal sources. These strategies play a central role in the commodification process of legal information. They also feed users’ dissatisfaction and some tensions between publishers and their clients, in the absence of a policy guaranteeing citizens’ right to legal information.
An Economy of Capture under Tension: The Case of Legal Publishers in Belgium - 2025.
56
This article depicts the oligopolistic system that offers access to a large part of legal information in Belgium. By describing the groups of actors populating the Belgian legal information market and analyzing their competitive and exchange relationships, we highlight the economy of “capture” that regulates this market. This economy relies on legal and sociotechnical lock-in strategies to capture clients and legal sources. These strategies play a central role in the commodification process of legal information. They also feed users’ dissatisfaction and some tensions between publishers and their clients, in the absence of a policy guaranteeing citizens’ right to legal information.
Réseaux sociaux