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The Courts United States

Justice Department To File Antitrust Suit Against Ticketmaster-Parent Live Nation (wsj.com) 48

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
The Justice Department is preparing to sue Live Nation as soon as next month [non-paywalled link], an antitrust challenge that could spur major changes at the biggest name in concert promotion and ticketing. WSJ: The agency is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against the Ticketmaster parent in the coming weeks that would allege the nation's biggest concert promoter has leveraged its dominance in a way that undermined competition for ticketing live events, according to people familiar with the matter.

The specific claims the department would allege couldn't be learned. The federal government opted out of trying to block Live Nation and Ticketmaster's 2010 tie up. Since then, the company has faced accusations of exorbitant ticket fees, flawed customer service and anticompetitive practices from lawmakers, regulators and state attorneys general. Critics of the merger say it has stifled competition in ticketing and that the company should be broken up. Live Nation's size and power in concert promotion, ticketing and venues are at the heart of a Justice Department investigation that began in 2022. The investigation gained momentum in November 2022 after Ticketmaster crashed during a fan presale to Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour."
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Justice Department To File Antitrust Suit Against Ticketmaster-Parent Live Nation More

Justice Department To File Antitrust Suit Against Ticketmaster-Parent Live Nation

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  • finally! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by worldthinker ( 536300 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2024 @12:35PM (#64398716)

    Now this is a good one to target.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Ban TicketMaster/Live Nation from the lucrative resale market and watch how quickly they conjure up an effective solution to solve the problem of bots snatching up all the tickets.

        We purchased tickets for Alanis Morissette's tour this summer, within 60 seconds of sales opening, and magically all the first sale tickets were gone and we had to go to the resale market. From nosebleed to "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", literally, every single seat in a ~20k person arena sold within a minute? Who knew she was still that popular....

        TM gets to collect their bullshit fees on every single sale, so what incentive do they have to do a damn thing about bots?

        Start by passing a law that makes it unlawful to make anything non-transferrable, whether it is a concert ticket or a software license. That one law would do more to fix this problem than anything else.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by vivian ( 156520 )

            It would be a simple matter to allow purchase of multiple tickets, but each ticket required a unique real full name of an individual, and that entry to the venue or resale of that ticket was only allowed if you could provide ID of that individual. That way, at most, a single individual could only buy and scalp a single ticket, and would stop the mass purchase of dozens or hundreds of tickets by one purchase.
            If you wanted to buy half a dozen tickets for your family and friends, you'd have to provide all thei

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dirk ( 87083 )

          How would this help exactly? Tickets are transferable now, that is how the resale market works. It wouldn't change anything for tickets at all.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            How would this help exactly? Tickets are transferable now, that is how the resale market works. It wouldn't change anything for tickets at all.

            Limits on transferring tickets creates the potential for people to be stuck with tickets and forced to go back to TicketMaster to resell them, where they make additional profit, which gives them a perverse incentive to allow bots to buy tickets, because they get to profit on the same sale more than once, raising the price each time the tickets get resold.

            Without those limitations, you'd be able to legitimately resell tickets anywhere, and companies wouldn't be afraid of allowing resale. As a result, almost

        • Start by passing a law that requires all munitions not already sent to Ukraine or Israel to be dropped on Ticketmaster's offices. Then invite other vendors to step in, and send them a framed photo of the crater where Ticketmaster used to be as a warning.

      • So ironic!

  • it'll get people talking about anti-trust law enforcement and it's a target everyone hates, if only because of the high cost of Taylor Swift tickets.

    But the courts are pretty well packed with pro-corporate judges now, so I suspect it'll die at the Supreme Court, if not sooner.

    Still, awareness is important. It'll get folks passing new laws and the courts are still stuck *interpreting* the law. Even if they sometimes quote a witchfinder general to do it...

    • The easiest thing to do is not to buy tickets, either firsthand or from scalpers. Kill the market. TicketMaster goes out of business and multiple companies will step in producing competition.

      But like people who complain about Amazon then go out and buy from them rather than not buying from them, this is too simple an idea so it can't be done.

      • Unfortunately, not enough people are willing to go along with this idea. It would require every major act selling out music venues to collaborate on agreeing not to tour in Ticketmaster/Live Nation venues. That might be illegal.

        • That is not what I said. I said people should not buy tickets. The groups can still use TM, but no one buys a ticket. Sure, the scalpers will still buy tickets, but once they realize there is no market for the tickets they stop buying them.

          The only way to truly hurt a company is to hurt their bottom line. Stop buying their product/service and they either go out of business or change their ways.

          • I'm saying people will buy tickets no matter what. The only actual solution is for acts to abandon venues controlled by ticketmaster. Which is basically all of them.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Holi ( 250190 )

      We went through this in 1994, Nothing came from it then, I have my doubts anything will change.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Taylor Swift wasn't a star then. Now the politicians on both sides of the fence have daughters and grand daughters who are swifties and left emotionally distraught at the unethical practices of LN and TM.

        • There were actually fans tailgating Taylor's last show, because they couldn't get tickets. Demand far outstripped the number of seats available at the venues and unless your grudge is against capitalism itself, that's just how it works.

          Yes, it sucks that people with more money get to go to a concert, while you're stuck listening from the parking lot. If they hate that, just wait until these kids discover how the housing market works.

  • Striking that it took the Taylor Swift concerts to show Congress how bad Ticket Master has always been. I mean they showed their hand decades ago when they tried to ruin Pearl Jam.
    That was 1994, and it was apparent that Ticket Master was a monopoly then (even before the Live Nation merger). Congress had their hearings, and then did nothing.

    • I'll not defend Ticketmaster, but it's hard to blame them for an unprecedented demand. The first tour in 5 years, for the first musician worth a billion dollars just by being a musician.

      If they had competition, those sites would have been DDoSed as well. Between the actual people and the bots buying just to resell, and then the people who have to click around a lot more to find the resale tickets, they really didn't have a chance.

      • If you believe Taylor, she questioned Ticket Master whether they were ready for the Eras tour ticket sale. And Ticket Master said they were. So you could blame them for overestimating their capability or lying to her.

        • How would you even remotely test to make sure you could handle that load? I'm sure their production environment is bigger than anything they have elsewhere, so the stimulation would DDOS their own site.

          Sure, if they didn't take the question as a warning and prepare to spin up as many virtual environments as they needed, but again this was unprecedented and it's absolutely bonkers that anyone would use that event to declare an antitrust violation.

          Again, even if they had competition, the competition sites wou

          • How would you even remotely test to make sure you could handle that load?

            As far as I know, stress testing a website exists. Ticketmaster either did not do a test or did not do an adequate test.

            Sure, if they didn't take the question as a warning and prepare to spin up as many virtual environments as they needed, but again this was unprecedented and it's absolutely bonkers that anyone would use that event to declare an antitrust violation.

            Er what? The fact that TicketMaster failed during the Eras Tour sale is not a direct indication of antitrust in linear path of Step 1. Ticketmaster failed. Step 2. Antritrust. Step 3 Profit! Overall, the Taylor Swift situation highlights the fact there was no alternative to TicketMaster that any artist even someone of Taylor's wealth and power could overcome. It is more indicative of the

      • I'll not defend Ticketmaster, but it's hard to blame them for an unprecedented demand.

        Ticketmaster absolutely is scummy and their fees are ridiculous.

        That being said, Taylor Swift's fanbase is off the rails when it comes to what some of them are willing to spend on anything related to her music. Case in point. [discogs.com]

        • And what does your link prove? Someone attempting to sell a Taylor Swift vinyl record for $3000. And? Your link also shows the low of $30, median of $264, and high of $2600. There is no other detail like the $2600 record might have been for an autographed copy. By the way, the same website shows an Eminem CD from 1997 [discogs.com] for $5500. By your logic, Eminem fans are crazier.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cstacy ( 534252 )

      Striking that it took the Taylor Swift concerts to show Congress how bad Ticket Master has always been. I mean they showed their hand decades ago when they tried to ruin Pearl Jam.
      That was 1994, and it was apparent that Ticket Master was a monopoly then (even before the Live Nation merger). Congress had their hearings, and then did nothing.

      Is there anything that Taylor Swift [youtube.com] can't do!?!

  • Dominance (Score:4, Informative)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2024 @12:55PM (#64398798)

    Rick: Well obviously Summer it appears the lower tier of this society is being manipulated through sex and advanced technology by a hidden ruling class. Sound familiar?

    Summer: [*gasp*] Ticketmaster.

    -- "Rick and Morty", Raising Gazorpazorp (S1.E7)

  • Could we finally have stumbled on something that both political sides of this country can agree on?

    • Nope. As soon as the check clears to Trump (well, the text message now they can just buy his stock and send him a photo) Trump will oppose this and then his cowards will eat their own words to please him. AGAIN. AND AGAIN.

      They'll make up the usual BS about big government overreach and "free market competition" that has fooled most the boomers their whole lives.

  • TM found a legalized way to scalp, control entire venues, entire markets putting a stranglehold on artists, tours, managers even aligning playlists of radio stations to correspond with upcoming shows. Its no different that Clearchannel or half the media or products which own companies within companies giving us no real choice but to buy from them

  • You know what's going to be great to see? (Score:3)

    by dasgoober ( 2882045 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2024 @06:21PM (#64399696)

    I wanna see how Ticketmaster/LiveNation tries to spin this to try to win the public o their side.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      I wanna see how Ticketmaster/LiveNation tries to spin this to try to win the public o their side.

      I suspect they'll add an additional investigation fee to every ticket.

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