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US Justice Department to Seek Breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster
(www.bloomberg.com)
Oh fuck yes, finally.
Only took 20 fucking years…
14, actually.
Which is 20 in fucking years. Gotta do the conversion from imperial units.
Queue Justice Thomas being seen, coincidentally, attending a large number of concerts with long-time friends on the Ticketmaster board...
Time to grab a 25 dollar bucket of popcorn from the refreshments stand and watch the fireworks from my 300 dollar chair right behind a support pillar.
Yeah and after we leave the movie theater we'll go to a concert, so save up!
Hang on, let me check my credit rating.
I think this is great.
What is really needed is the end of monopoly on the venues. As long as that is in place, this won't do much for ticket prices.
Even just removing dynamic pricing, prohibiting ticket resales from going above original price, and removing extra fees (for upgrades and resales) will solve most of the issues.
I get it, but if they own the major venues in every town...they can still set their own prices.
The ticket companies shouldn't have ownership of the venue.
Pearl Jam fought them for years but had to stop because they owned every stadium and large venue, and that was 30+ years ago when they were just one company.
It's literally the same breakup that happened with movie studios owning theaters in 1948. It's emblematic of the state of antitrust in the past decades that we've let another industry get away with the exact same issue thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc.
Yup. Concert venues and streaming are in the same position movie theaters were in back then.
The streaming vertical integration really irks me. Say what you will about the music industry, but at least I only have to pay for ONE streaming platform to enjoy pretty much any song I want.
if they own the major venues in every town
When you say "own" in this context, do you mean they actually bought the building, or just that they have an exclusive contract with the venue?
Both. Live nation either owns the venue or has an exclusive contract with the venue. If you run a venue and you do not parter with live nation they will run you out of business.
One of my hobbies is hosting raves and I've heard a lot of stories from venue owners about live nation/ticket master. They work a lot like the mafia where if you don't accept their terms they will do everything in their power to shut you down. They will do stuff like scheduling large names shows to conflict with your key events while also 'influencing' the local officials to pull your liquid license. I 100% agree that they should be broken up but I would go a step further and also split off their promoter sector that way ticketing, venues, and events are all separate entities that cannot completely control the market.
They’re why I don’t go to concerts. But we shall see.
Same, they are an absolutely horrible company. Far beyond the "normal" late-stage capitalism we see with other companies.
I've never been to a rock concert because I've heard precisely one story from someone who truly had a great time compared to what they might have had in a smaller venue and that was because they had good seats.
If the amount of enjoyment you're going to get out of a band is directly proportional to how much you're willing to pay, fuck that.
So Pearl Jam isn’t just a dumb group of kids that know nothing?
They got Taylor Swift on their side after the last Eras tour fiasco.
Gotta say, I'm not terribly hopeful about this.
"The cattle ranchers are in charge, Coop"
How the fuck were they even allowed to merge? It’s the definition of a god damn monopoly.
Politicians and justices are bought by the same corporations who are becoming monopolies.
And the best part about it is that the people getting bribes are the ones who get to decide if getting bribes is ok!
Totally Not A Broken System!™
(Fuck you goddamn naive founding fathers. Integrity died like 100 years ago yet our entire government depends on people having it...)
Don't worry. The country is going to start it's death rattle in about a year when fascism takes over due to the wealthy prefering fascism over any semblence of socialism.
Other than pure corruption, there's a lot of issues with plain old tech illiteracy. Going to bat against a legal team specifically trained to talk circles around aging justices and politicians is a real losing formula. This was on full display during the Cambridge Analytica trial.
It turns out you can choose whatever laws you want if you give a few tens of thousands to some Congressmen or an RV to Clarence Thomas.
Yeah, I'll believe it after it's done. I'm not expecting progress in my lifetime.
Hey, we've gotten a series of pretty big wins from Lina Khan - yea, a lot of shit is broken and it'll take a while to fix it... but some people really are trying.
Maybe it's time to try that guillotine thing
It seems to be heading that way..
Excellent pun whether or not it was intended 😁
😇
Yet again, the swifties take a win. Those fans are a force of nature.
They better come out and vote in ROEvember as well
I think Congress would have to pass regulation to see any improvement and a reasonable level of competition. If this breakup just results in regional monopolies instead of national ones with the same exclusionary contracts with venues, it'll result in a distinction without a difference.
Yes, obviously they broke the settlement that allowed the merger in the first place r.e. exclusionary contracts, but if they break up the company, they'll be allowing the successor companies to set up exclusionary contracts themselves.
Now do Google, Amazon, FB, etc.
They mention every company you listed in the article…
“Biden’s Justice Department has already filed twin monopolization cases against Google and in March sued Apple Inc. for allegedly thwarting innovation on its iPhone. The Federal Trade Commission, which jointly enforces the antitrust laws, is seeking to force Meta Platforms Inc. to sell off its Instagram and WhatsApp units and sued Amazon last year for monopolization of online marketplace services.”
This is helpful, thank you. I was only able to read the first paragraph or so before it cut out and said I needed to make an account, so I just stopped there.
this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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