The Objectives of Regulating the Digital Economy Indicate That There Is a Right to Data in the Digital Markets Act with Direct Effect and Applicability

Abstract

The chapter discusses the objectives for regulating the digital economy and why we should view the new regulations and acts being derived from the legislative work of the EU as the emergence of a new legal discipline, the market law for the digital economy, or, short, digital market law. The energy and speed with which EU institutions are developing these diverse (and sometimes dysfunctional) sector-specific regulations for the digital economy certainly call for a more holistic approach. A general approach to the legal system now being developed in a piecemeal fashion to protect a number of freedoms and objectives for the digital economy, ensuring that a sturdy legal platform for the new paradigm is put in place without over-regulating the data-driven economy. Foremost, the new legal discipline needs its own property rights regime. As will be argued in the chapter, the general objectives for establishing a market law for the digital economy calls for a sui generis property regime for data, and the author argues that an access and transfer right to data based on the obligations stipulated in the Digital Markets Act should be developed and acknowledged as a proper property right.