Jurisdictions have at various times imposed legal monopolies on various
commodities, including salt, iron and
tobacco. The English
Statute of Monopolies of 1623 was an early step in an English movement to convert
letters patent from a method of rewarding
royal favourites at other than royal expense, to a method of encouraging inventors. The
British East India Company (1600),
Dutch East India Company (1602), and similar national trading companies were granted exclusive trade rights by their respective national governments (monarchs).
Private interlopers were subject to criminal penalties, and the companies fought wars in the 17th century to delineate and defend their monopoly territories. Legal monopolies on
alcohol remain commonplace, both as a source of public revenue and as a means of control, and the monopolies on
opium and
cocaine, formerly important for revenue, were converted or reinstituted during the twentieth century to curb the abuse of
controlled substances. For example,
Mallinckrodt Incorporated is the only legal supplier of cocaine in the
United States. The regulation of
gambling in many places includes an official monopoly
national lottery or
state lottery. Where private operation is allowed, for example in
horse racing,
off-track betting and
casinos, the authorities may license only one operator. The early 19th century
Gibbons v. Ogden case weakened the steamboat monopoly that New York had granted, producing an exception for interstate commerce. However the later
Slaughter-House Cases established that a local law creating a legal monopoly did not violate the rights of other merchants in the United States. The
National Recovery Act to promote and legally enforce producer cartels was defeated in
Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States. In the middle twentieth century many countries established a monopoly
broadcasting agency, such as
BBC,
Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française, or
RAI. Most large countries relaxed their law or privatized their state broadcaster late in the century. In parts of the
United States,
AT&T had a legal monopoly on the provision of
local telephone service and in
long distance until 1984 when local service was
vertically divested. The divested
local companies continued to be protected in lesser degree from competition in the local exchange market as a
public utility. National
Postal, telegraph and telephone service monopolies were enforced in many countries until the late 20th century.
Telstra, for example, had a legal monopoly on
telecommunications in Australia. As do the Post Office departments in many countries, the
United States Postal Service has a legal monopoly on delivery of non-overnight letters. In many cities bus service enjoys a legal monopoly, however some city governments have legalized
bus competition due to pressure from consumers who desire lower prices and entrepreneurs that would like to provide them. Professional sports organizations such as
Major League Baseball are not legally protected from
independent league baseball, but nonetheless are sometimes called legal monopolies on grounds that they are exempted from
US antitrust law. Professional
licensure as of
Professional Engineers in the United States or
Chartered Accountants in the United Kingdom, does not limit the number of practitioners to one, but detractors sometimes call the system a legal monopoly anyway. The creation of
Sirius XM Radio by merger left the United States with only one licensed satellite radio broadcasting company. However, the
United States Department of Justice decided that this was not harmful to competition, due to the presence of terrestrial broadcasters. == See also ==