We analyse the legal and economic background and implications of the destandardisation of digital contracts, with a focus on consumer protection and overall efficiency. We argue that firms can exploit destandardisation paired with asymmetric information to extract rents. We propose the introduction of a numerus clausus principle in the digital licensing realm (a limit to the contractual freedom of parties to create proprietary rights) as a way of reducing rent extraction by firms and increasing consumer surplus. With a simple economic model, we account for the tradeoff between the benefit from reduced market power and the social cost of legally enforced standardisation, and show that some degree of enforced standardisation can be optimal.

我们分析了数字合同去标准化的法律和经济背景以及影响，重点是消费者保护和整体效率。我们认为，公司可以利用与不对称信息配对的去标准化来提取租金。我们建议在数字许可领域引入 numerus clausus 原则（限制各方创造所有权的合同自由），作为减少公司租金提取和增加消费者剩余的一种方式。通过一个简单的经济模型，我们考虑了降低市场力量带来的收益与法律强制标准化的社会成本之间的权衡，并表明某种程度的强制标准化可能是最优的。