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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

#101

Post by bnjms »

fragmede wrote: post #88
bnjms wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreements forcing artists to only use LN locations and TM ticketing in markets where possible. Ticketing is relatively easy since the early days so competition should help. We also need better laws defining what can and cannot be a fee. Fees should only be for things which are truly optional and declinable.

The AT&T breakup was a lie. Dividing the country into regions so as to not compete is what collusion looks like. Hopefully they don't do that this time.

No doubt but land ownership doesn’t have the same network effects as telecom. Assuming there is a clean cut between ticketing and venues it would also be helpful to see breakups of LN property between regions.

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

#102

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#103

Post by fngjdflmdflg »

vundercind wrote: post #4
xenospn wrote: post #3

Finally. As someone who is active in the local music scene, I’ve spent thousands on junk fees over the years. Not sure why it has taken this long.

Because we all but entirely stopped enforcing anti-trust in the 80s :-(

here's one landmark case in 1992. There have been more since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....

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

#104

Post by autoexec »

fragmede wrote: post #79
jowea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon me but I'm laughing out loud here. Who is this for?

People who buy into the idea of government being a societal good, and aren't bitter old cynics.

I suppose someone could submit a foia request and get a list of the people who donated and how much. I suspect that either nobody is donating to them, or that lots of interesting people/companies are regularly donating large amounts to them.

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

#105

Post by ksherlock »

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 .

They fixed up the worst part a while back. It used to be that you had to "type" your password by using an onscreen keyboard (to prevent keylogging?). Now it's a normal password field at least.

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

#106

Post by akira2501 »

dylan604 wrote: post #80
akira2501 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This particular administration only has a guaranteed relevance of about 7 months. That is a deeply cynical view on the nature of politics. > So, why bring it now? Why help anyone else if you can't score political points off the back of it? Possibly because it's the right thing to do and ideologically motivated people actually do successfully exist in government.

> That is a deeply cynical view on the nature of politics. How? If the bid for re-election is lost, they leave office Jan 20th. That's not cynical. That's being able to read a calendar. If you think a new administration, specifically the one that would be coming in, will not immediately reverse a lot of things, then you just have not been paying attention.

Then they just handed them that victory without extracting any sort of price.

The incoming challenger is riding on a "populist" base. These polices are legitimate "populist" policies. The strategy here is obvious.

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

#107

Post by ryandrake »

__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.

When it comes to holding corporations accountable for their actions, very little actually does ever change. Our entire system treats business/corporations with kid gloves, and it's not a partisan issue that will change with a different party in control.

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

#108

Post by chrisfinazzo »

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.

Yet nobody seems to ever ask whether or not the merger is a question of survival - would TM or LN poof out of existence if they didn't have this release valve? - or simply just another attempt to stifle existing competition in the market.

People who are really opposed to this will probably think this is wildly off base, but if it came to pass...isn't that worse than one company absorbing the other because although the endgame is similar, it's messier and doesn't necessarily improve the overall situation.

An example: Barclays acquisition of Lehman Brothers business in North America in 2008 after the latter imploded. They had an agreement in principle, but the government balked, so it happened after the fact...bringing an even larger crisis along with it.

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

#109

Post by _3u10 »

Loughla wrote: post #94
its_ethan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those that want free healthcare could easily fund it. Honestly I think it would work far better than anyone imagines.

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

#110

Post by ryandrake »

This is great news but: Please also stop giving Ticketmaster your money. Every dollar you voluntarily give them (for a totally optional product, I might add) encourages them to continue their horrible practices.

"Ticketmaster is such a terrible company!" he says as he buys more concert tickets from them.

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