{"id":209019,"date":"2024-08-19T17:36:55","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T16:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=209019"},"modified":"2024-08-19T20:29:23","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T19:29:23","slug":"ten-additional-us-states-just-joined-the-dojs-antitrust-lawsuit-looking-to-break-up-live-nation-and-ticketmaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/ten-additional-us-states-just-joined-the-dojs-antitrust-lawsuit-looking-to-break-up-live-nation-and-ticketmaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten additional US states join DOJ antitrust lawsuit looking to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

The attorneys general of 10 states have joined the US Department of Justice (DoJ)\u2019s antitrust lawsuit seeking to break off Live Nation from its ticketing subsidiary, Ticketmaster.<\/p>\n

The state prosecutors of Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Vermont have now added themselves to the lawsuit that was originally filed against the live music giant in May, the DoJ said in a statement issued on Monday (August 19).<\/p>\n

That means a total of 39 US states, plus the District of Columbia, are now part of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

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The DoJ also filed an amended complaint against Live Nation, which \u201calleges additional details about Live Nation-Ticketmaster\u2019s anticompetitive course of conduct in markets across the live entertainment industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following an 18-month investigation, the DoJ filed the antitrust suit<\/a> against Live Nation on May 23, alleging the company engaged in \u201cmonopolization and other unlawful conduct\u201d designed to thwart competition in the live music industry.<\/p>\n

Almost concurrently, Live Nation was hit with a proposed consumer class action lawsuit<\/a> brought on behalf of potentially millions of ticket buyers in the US.<\/p>\n

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Live Nation has vigorously defended itself against accusations of monopolistic behavior, both before and after the DoJ filed its suit, arguing \u2013 among other things \u2013 that it doesn\u2019t enjoy the large margins seen in businesses that have monopolized their industries, and that breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster won\u2019t bring lower prices to consumers, because it\u2019s not Ticketmaster that determines prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cTickets are actually priced by artists and [sports] teams. It\u2019s their show, they get to decide what it costs to get in. The NFL tickets on Ticketmaster were priced by the home teams, concert tickets were priced by the performer\u2019s business teams, Monster Jam tickets were priced by its producer (Feld Entertainment), and so forth,\u201d Live Nation wrote<\/a> in a blog post in March.<\/p>\n

In a response to the DoJ lawsuit, Live Nation said<\/a> the suit \u201cignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from increasing production costs to artist popularity, to 24\/7 online ticket scalping that reveals the public\u2019s willingness to pay far more than primary tickets cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt blames Live Nation and Ticketmaster for high service charges, but ignores that Ticketmaster retains only a modest portion of those fees. In fact, primary ticketing is one of the least expensive digital distributions in the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cArtists and fans as well as the countless people and other services that support them suffer from the loss of dynamism and growth that competition would inevitably usher in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amended DoJ complaint against Live Nation<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To back up its point, Live Nation published a chart showing that its 5%<\/strong> commission on tickets is lower than many other platforms, including Airbnb<\/strong> (17.2%<\/strong>), Uber<\/strong> (25%<\/strong>), and rival ticket seller StubHub<\/strong> (37%<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The DoJ maintains that \u201cLive Nation-Ticketmaster exercises its power over performers, venues, and independent promoters in ways that harm competition. Live Nation-Ticketmaster also imposes barriers to competition that limit the entry and expansion of its rivals.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In their amended complaint, filed on Monday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the attorneys general said Live Nation directly manages more than 400<\/strong> musical artists, controls around 60%<\/strong> of concert promotions at major venues across the US, and owns or controls 60 of the top 100 amphitheater venues in the country.<\/p>\n

The full complaint can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ticketmaster, meanwhile, controls \u201c80%<\/strong> or more of major concert venues\u2019 primary ticketing for concerts and a growing share of ticket resales in the secondary market,\u201d the complaint stated.<\/p>\n

That dominant position in the live entertainment space has given Live Nation the \u201cpower and influence to insert themselves at the center and the edges of virtually every aspect of the live music ecosystem. This has given Live Nation and Ticketmaster the opportunity to freeze innovation and bend the industry to their own benefit. While this may be a boon to Live Nation\u2019s bottom line, there is a real cost to Americans,\u201d the complaint continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cArtists and fans as well as the countless people and other services that support them suffer from the loss of dynamism and growth that competition would inevitably usher in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A total of 39 states and the District of Columbia are now asking a court to force the break-up of Live Nation and Ticketmaster<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":202433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[130989,489,490],"class_list":["post-209019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-antitrust-lawsuit","tag-live-nation","tag-ticketmaster"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}