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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

#201

Post by jjeaff »

supernova87a wrote: post #181

Let's however not get too caught up in feel-goodism that somehow breaking up Ticketmaster is ridding the live entertainment industry of some external leech that everyone hated. You should realize that venues and artists are equally beneficiaries of what Ticketmaster enables. In a sense they enjoy having Ticketmaster be the hated scapegoat for high prices that they then also enjoy the benefits of. Without Ticketmaster…

the huge upcharge on tickets is usually from scalpers that are allowed to buy and resell on the platform. are artists and venues somehow in on the scalping? I have suspected as much, but I have no evidence.

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

#202

Post by kelnos »

brightball wrote: post #175
laidoffamazon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Election year is 25% of a single administration's term, why should events be ignored 25% of the time?

Because they've had the entire term to take action and the only reason anything is happening now it to attempt to build some momentum going into the election itself. Soon as it's over, everything most likely goes away.

It takes time and work to put together cases like this. I look at it the other way: they've only had three years, and have already done some impressive things.

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

#203

Post by cbsmith »

Retric wrote: post #84
nickff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that most political factions actually agree on most policies, but that doesn’t mean the decision as to whether to proceed is ‘civil service’ rather than ‘political’.

Political sure, but I don’t think you can call something politics without there being some debate. Should we build a road is a classic political choice because people disagree even if it’s generally a net positive. Should we prosecute a murderer may qualify if there’s some twist (ex stand your ground) but not in the general case.

> Should we build a road is a classic political choice because people disagree even if it’s generally a net positive. Should we prosecute a murderer may qualify if there’s some twist (ex stand your ground) but not in the general case.

What laws get passed/repealed are decided on by people elected to office. Policies and priorities for departments are decided upon by political appointees. Decisions on cases though? Those are generally delegated to the civil service.

Now, from a practical standpoint, there's obviously ways you can muck with policies and priorities that can impact a particular case, just like there are ways that you can change the laws to muck with a particular case (you may recall when Florida went after Disney, they had to bend over backwards to draw up the law such that they could claim they weren't explicitly going after one company), but that's exactly the kind of stuff that draws criticism (and there are rules against it). There is absolutely a principle of independence & impartiality of the DOJ that's been the norm, even if recently that norm has been eroded.

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

#204

Post by dmix »

ryandrake wrote: post #110

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.

Internet boycotts of megacorps never work but people keep trying

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

#205

Post by kelnos »

nickff wrote: post #146
dpkirchner wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> insulting and alienating the agency staff What are you referring to here?

https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-j... There is a great deal of documentation and discussion, but this document covers some of it, here are a couple of on-topic quotes: > "Documents from and testimony by FTC managers show that Chair Khan marginalized the litigators and investigators at the FTC who had the skills necessary to win cases." > "One manager consulted with his team and reported to t…

Jim Jordan dunking on Democratic political appointees? Gee, there's a big surprise.

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

#207

Post by the_gastropod »

atlgator wrote: post #168

I don’t have a dog in this fight but I’m curious why Live Nation-Ticketmaster and not Meta, Google, or Amazon?

Meta, Google, and Amazon have all been sued for illegally maintaining monopolies. [1] [2] [3]

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2020/12/...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-googl...

[3] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/...

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

#208

Post by zeroonetwothree »

Loughla wrote: post #92
EasyMark wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can also be an instance of Baumol’s cost disease.

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

#209

Post by llamaimperative »

klyrs wrote: post #170
llamaimperative wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To the contrary, I've been paying very close attention. I'm just not confident that the DoJ can pull this off before the end of the Biden administration.

Ah I see. You’re saying that you don’t expect this to complete, not that this is cynically political/false… sorry!

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

#210

Post by dmix »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #68
roughly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been noted by a few folks that anything the administration says out loud immediately becomes gristle for the Fox News-o-verse and therefore something for Congress to yell loudly at and try to block. The Biden administration has consequently become very good at being very quiet about the things it’s doing well, with the distinct drawback in an election year that everyone seems to be quite surprised when they disc…

The Biden administration is a textbook example of how to not control any narratives whatsoever and never be able to get any credit. They lost the narrative after Kabul and then just never got it back, despite being one of the most legislatively successful and executively impactful administrations in the last 50 years. Case in point - recent poll that had 50% of voters that listed "climate" as their top priority didn'…

According to Gallop only 2% of Americans list climate as the top priority. by far the most important priority is the economy. For non economic issues immigration ranks #1, climate being #11.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.asp...

Or maybe being out of touch with what people want is the biggest issue

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