Close Menu
Technology Mag

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    What's Hot

    Laptop Mag is shutting down

    July 1, 2025

    How to Make AI Faster and Smarter—With a Little Help From Physics

    July 1, 2025

    Xiaomi’s YU7 Is an SUV-Sized Middle Finger to Tesla’s Model Y

    July 1, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Subscribe
    Technology Mag
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • News
    • Business
    • Games
    • Gear
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Security
    • Trending
    • Press Release
    Technology Mag
    Home » US Sues to Break Up Ticketmaster and Live Nation, Alleging Monopoly Abuse
    Business

    US Sues to Break Up Ticketmaster and Live Nation, Alleging Monopoly Abuse

    News RoomBy News RoomMay 23, 20243 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp Email

    In the second case, a class action brought in 2022 on behalf of Ticketmaster customers in the US, Live Nation and Ticketmaster were accused of abusing the complementary relationship between their services to overcharge consumers and sustain their monopoly. “Live Nation controls the vast majority of the big national touring acts and, either explicitly or implicitly, coerces concert venues into selecting Ticketmaster as their ticketing service provider on pain of losing high-value acts,” claims Adam Wolfson, a partner at Quinn Emanuel, the law firm representing the plaintiffs.

    This type of conduct, known as tying, was explicitly forbidden under the consent decree imposed upon Live Nation and Ticketmaster by the DOJ as a condition of their 2010 merger. “Our allegation is that they did it anyway,” says Wolfson. “Ticketmaster’s behavior is an open secret—everyone talks about it.”

    In a corporate blog post published in March, Dan Wall, executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs at Live Nation, rejected allegations that Ticketmaster is driving up the price of tickets. The face value of a ticket is decided by the artist, he wrote, while the service charge—from which Ticketmaster draws its cut—is set by the venue.

    In a call with reporters, a senior DOJ official described this line of defense as a “red herring” in the context of the alleged antitrust violations. “Our position is that removing the chokehold that Live Nation has at all levels of the ecosystem will be beneficial with respect to the way prices are set.”

    A problem common to antitrust disputes, says Bradley Justus, an antitrust attorney at law firm Axinn, is the difficulty in distinguishing easily between practices that amount to anticompetitive behavior and those that might be considered sensible business strategy. The DOJ will argue that the exclusive deals entered into by Ticketmaster are categorically anticompetitive. “The antitrust question is: How extensive is the scope of those agreements? Are they truly so broad that another competitor couldn’t enter and scale?” says Justus.

    The DOJ claims that the terms of the contracts mean that “venues cannot consider or choose rival ticketers or switch to better or more cost-effective ticketing technology.” The effect, it claims, is both to stifle competitors and minimize the pressure for Ticketmaster to improve its own product, to the detriment of concertgoers.

    Although the DOJ has petitioned for Live Nation to be broken up, it has not outlined the specific structural changes it will go after, nor any injunctions it may try to impose with respect to the company’s exclusive contracts. “A breakup is absolutely on the table, but it’s important not to put the cart before the horse. In antitrust cases, any remedy has to be specifically tailored to the violation found,” a senior DOJ official told the press. “Based on the allegation that Live Nation and Ticketmaster have exerted control at every level of the ecosystem, aspects of the company need to be broken apart in order for competition to flourish in the live music industry.”

    Updated 12:05 pm ET, May 23, 2024: Added statement from Live Nation.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleThe Samsung right-to-repair story just got worse
    Next Article Euclid space telescope captures tens of thousands of glittering galaxies

    Related Posts

    Here Is Everyone Mark Zuckerberg Has Hired So Far for Meta’s ‘Superintelligence’ Team

    July 1, 2025

    Microsoft Says Its New AI System Diagnosed Patients 4 Times More Accurately Than Human Doctors

    July 1, 2025

    OpenAI Leadership Responds to Meta Offers: ‘Someone Has Broken Into Our Home’

    June 30, 2025

    OpenAI Loses 4 Key Researchers to Meta

    June 30, 2025

    OpenAI’s Unreleased AGI Paper Could Complicate Microsoft Negotiations

    June 30, 2025

    Substack Is Having a Moment—Again. But Time Is Running Out

    June 29, 2025
    Our Picks

    How to Make AI Faster and Smarter—With a Little Help From Physics

    July 1, 2025

    Xiaomi’s YU7 Is an SUV-Sized Middle Finger to Tesla’s Model Y

    July 1, 2025

    Apple accuses former Vision Pro engineer of stealing trade secrets

    July 1, 2025

    Trump says he’ll look into deporting Musk as fight over bill escalates

    July 1, 2025
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Vimeo
    Don't Miss
    Gear

    No, You Probably Don’t Need a MacBook Pro

    By News RoomJuly 1, 2025

    We all have that one friend who’s tech-savvy that everyone turns to for advice, especially…

    Sharp pencils for hard times

    July 1, 2025

    How Do Pimple Patches Work? Here’s Everything You Need to Know

    July 1, 2025

    Newark’s air traffic outages were just the tip of the iceberg

    July 1, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of use
    • Advertise
    • Contact
    © 2025 Technology Mag. All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.