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Its not just Swifties although there isa contingent of fan-lawyerson the case.
(The Justice Department had no comment on the investigation when reached by Vulture.)
Dr. Diana Moss has been advocating for the companies breakup for years.
(RememberPearl Jams crusade?)
(Ticketmaster estimated that 15 percent of site interactions had issues on November 15.
This is very, very typical of monopolists, Moss says.
Theres no competitive pressure to innovate, so they produce poor-quality products.
As in Ticketmasters statement on the Eras Tour, Live Nation reiterated its commitment to improvement.
(She laughs at Live Nations defense of its status.)
And the outcomes of a breakup, too, could be bigger than the two companies.
The American Antitrust Institute hasstudies and statementsgoing back to 2010, when the Live NationTicketmaster merger was first happening.
We started before the merger.
Transferability of tickets with paperless ticketing was an issue even before the Live NationTicketmaster merger.
But lets start with the merger.
That merger was what we call in antitrust speak presumptively illegal.
The DOJ focused on the overlaps between Ticketmasters ticketing platform and Live Nations thenreally tiny, fledgling ticketing platform.
And the reality was, thats not the issue.
The issue wasa vertical issue, and that has all come to pass.
We were harassed if we didnt agree to take the Ticketmaster ticketing platform.
You could craft a similar story for how Live NationTicketmaster has excluded rivals in the secondary ticketing markets.
Its really a two-pronged concern.
Its good for competition, its good for consumers, and its good for the artists.
Weve been complaining about this and writing about it and analyzing it for 12 years now.
We criticized the Department of Justicetwo years ago.All it did was extend the conditions that were already in effect.
Well, clearly those conditions were ineffective.
Were not having an epiphany moment here.
Now theres a bonfire.
The full force of the United States antitrust enforcement mechanisms should be brought to bear.
Live Nation put out a statement after the news of the reported investigation basically claiming that thereiscompetition.
Whats your take on that?[Laughs.]
Im sorry to laugh.
The Ticketmaster platform is Ticketmaster attempting to maintain its market power.
Think about the resale market, all the price spikes, and the $42,000 tickets that went up.
This is what Ticketmaster does vis-a-vis the resale market: drive consumers always back to Ticketmaster.
So prices spike, of course, because theres scarcity and theres excess demand relative to supply.
I dont know if there were holdbacks going on, but I highly suspect it in the Swift incident.
And Ticketmaster restricts ticket transferability.
The list goes on and on.
Im sure you saw Greg Maffei, chair of Live Nation, on CNBC.
AXS is a ticketing platform, but its very small.
And, by the way, it has high ticket fees too.
The quality of the technology would increase and improve.
The resale market would function better in conjunction with the primary market.
Look at Europe they dont have a Ticketmaster in Europe.
They have competition, and ticket prices are lower.
Taylor Swift says shes mad at the situation but seems to be tiptoeing around criticism.
Ive heard people wondering if there are non-disparagement agreements so an artist cant quite fully speak out about Ticketmaster.
So what can an artist do here?Its a hard one.
Ill just put that out as a marker.
But the bottom line is artists want their fans to be able to access their concerts.
Fans want to see their artists.
If fans have to pay excruciatingly high monopoly prices and ticketing fees, they cant see their artists.
And if theyre restricted in the resale market, they cant get access that way either.
And thats what Live NationTicketmaster has locked up.
But this is the fear and retaliation problem if youre up against a monopoly.
There are direct mechanisms like antitrust consumer class-action cases.
And they have to complain.
They have to complain to their legislators state and federal.
Thats not a fix, obviously.
These cases can take months, if not years, to play out.
There are legislative proposals at the state level and the federal level.
In fact, many of those bills have been floating around for some time.
I think we could only expect Live NationTicketmaster to continue with its practices while this is going on.
I think the public sees that and is now sufficiently skeptical and outraged.
Actually putting that under the spotlight is a really, really good thing.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
