stead, the value of a good is determined by the number of other people who purchase the same good, with the examples commonly cited including the network of users of a particular type of format of videocassette recorder (VCR), a particular type of software, or a particular computer operating system. To date, scholars have focused on the fact that indirect network externalities typically arise in markets that involve complementary goods and that proprietary control of a network can provide network users with some assurance that a ready supply of complementary goods will remain available (Katz and Shapiro 1994; Speta 2000). Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis argue that such effects are not consumption externalities, but rather are pecuniary externalities that simply transfer wealth between market actors. As such, they "describe nothing more than welfare-neutral interactions that occur in properly functioning markets" (Liebowitz and Margolis 1994, pp. 133, 139). Networks in Telecommunications available demand-side economies of scale. When this occurs, no unexploited gains from trade regarding network size remain, and the equilibrium solution is compe- tition among multiple proprietary networks. The point can be illustrated through the now classic problem presented by overfishing a lake. Because individual anglers do not internalize all of the costs of their actions, they lack sufficient incentives to undertake efficient levels of conservation and investment. The solution is to vest property rights to the entire lake in a single owner. Doing SO will not necessarily eliminate competition in the market for fish, because giving owners unitary prop- erty rights over a particular lake is not the same as giving them control over all lakes. Instead, one would expect the various owners of different lakes to compete with one another in the market to supply fish. Placed in the context of networks, the proper policy question becomes one of defining property rights in a way that ensures that networks achieve sufficient size to 