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US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

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Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#91

Post by vikingerik »

julianeon wrote: post #16

If Live Nation-Ticketmaster is not a monopoly then there is no such thing as a monopoly.

The monopoly is really the artists, who then delegate to the venues. Like, Bruce Springsteen ticket prices are high because only he is Bruce Springsteen and nobody else is. The real monopoly is on being Bruce Springsteen. Prices are high because of supply and demand for that artist; Bruce Springsteen can only put on so many shows for so many seats and there is far more demand than that, no matter who is selling the tickets.

Live Nation-Ticketmaster only gets the monopoly power delegated from the artists and venues. If you break that up into competing ticket providers, that doesn't do anything to the underlying prices, tickets will still be resold on secondary markets until the prices reach supply-demand equilibrium.

Busting LN-TM hypothetically doesn't even do anything to the fees. The market is set by what customers will pay, and it doesn't matter to them what the breakdown is between going to the middlemen or going to the artist. At most, busting LN-TM does create competition for lower fees, so that the artist gets more of the revenue. But it's not clear at all that that's a matter for courts to forcibly impose.

(I see the downvotes. The Internet hivemind will always think it's entitled to ignore the laws of supply and demand, even on HN. Ticket prices are high because demand exceeds supply and customers choose to pay it, not because of a monopolistic reseller entity.)

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#92

Post by Loughla »

EasyMark wrote: post #52
paulddraper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But monopolies are not illegal. Violating antitrust law is illegal. --- You don't violate federal law just by being the only company to sell canine banana hammocks.

Are you arguing that they aren't hurting consumers? Just look at ticket prices over the years as more and more competition was eliminated, as well as the tactics they use to control artists. You aren't going to have much luck I suspect.

I was just looking at that last night.

[Artist that was super popular in 2006ish] tickets when we went at the absolute height of his popularity were $40 for lawn seats at a local venue

[Same artist] at the same venue in the same lawn seating is now $380.

What's the difference? Guess who bought the venue.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#93

Post by fragmede »

klyrs wrote: post #54
EasyMark wrote: post #51

The FTC and DoJ have been hitting it out of the park recently, unfortunately, there are a lot of judges out there that think corps should be able to do anything they want.

It's an election year, don't hold your breath.

But we have Taylor Swift to thank for this one and she's not running for office.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#94

Post by Loughla »

its_ethan wrote: post #72
janalsncm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be pretty interesting if certain departments in the government could get direct payments. For example if the last $100 on your taxes you could choose any department to allocate to.

I've always wondered what government funding would look like if taxpayers could allocate their tax dollars at their own discretion. I don't think it would be all that functional in practice, but the idea of it seems interesting.

That would be an absolute shit show. But it would genuinely be interesting to see what people value. Right before the inevitable collapse.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#95

Post by llamaimperative »

klyrs wrote: post #54
EasyMark wrote: post #51

The FTC and DoJ have been hitting it out of the park recently, unfortunately, there are a lot of judges out there that think corps should be able to do anything they want.

It's an election year, don't hold your breath.

FTC has been aggressively pursuing antitrust since pretty much day one of the admin. You just weren’t paying attention.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#96

Post by Loughla »

notfed wrote: post #81
supportengineer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is their site - treasurydirect.gov

The treasurydirect.gov website needs a GoFundMe. That site is awful .

What's wrong with it? It seems pretty straight forward on my phone.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#97

Post by llamaimperative »

__loam wrote: post #60
willcipriano wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Election year. They know the judges won't let anything bad happen to their friends so they can pretend to act tough every four years (when the billionaire class's preferred candidate/party is in office of course).

I don't understand people like you. A government agency does something material to help the consumer and you just shit talk and resort to base cynicism. Nothing would ever change if everyone was as apathetic as you are.

Cynicism helps people feel smart, when in many cases it actually just reveals their immense ignorance (such as this case).

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#98

Post by alfalfasprout »

vikingerik wrote: post #91
julianeon wrote: post #16

If Live Nation-Ticketmaster is not a monopoly then there is no such thing as a monopoly.

The monopoly is really the artists, who then delegate to the venues. Like, Bruce Springsteen ticket prices are high because only he is Bruce Springsteen and nobody else is. The real monopoly is on being Bruce Springsteen . Prices are high because of supply and demand for that artist ; Bruce Springsteen can only put on so many shows for so many seats and there is far more demand than that, no matter who is selling the…

You're really missing the point.

The issue here isn't that top artists can't sell their tickets at a high price. It's that venues have exclusivity deals w/ ticketmaster/livenation and ticketmaster/livenation ultimately charge outrageous fees to consumers no matter what. Then often their own reselling arm is involved in the scalping behavior.

The artists aren't reaping these fees. Ticketmaster/livenation is capturing the entirety of the profit and artists don't really have a choice in using a different ticketing vendor in most cases (since it's common for every major venue in a city to have strong-armed exclusivity contracts w/ ticketmaster/livenation).

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#99

Post by jimbokun »

klyrs wrote: post #54
EasyMark wrote: post #51

The FTC and DoJ have been hitting it out of the park recently, unfortunately, there are a lot of judges out there that think corps should be able to do anything they want.

It's an election year, don't hold your breath.

How dare politicians implement popular policies to appeal to voters!

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#100

Post by _3u10 »

EasyMark wrote: post #52
paulddraper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But monopolies are not illegal. Violating antitrust law is illegal. --- You don't violate federal law just by being the only company to sell canine banana hammocks.

Are you arguing that they aren't hurting consumers? Just look at ticket prices over the years as more and more competition was eliminated, as well as the tactics they use to control artists. You aren't going to have much luck I suspect.

Doesn't ticket master sell most tickets for far below market value? How does this hurt consumers? Are they forcing artists to sell below market value or something?
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