There is probably one opportunity, and one opportunity only to solve the biggest problem plaguing the live music industry in the United States, and that is the current trial that Live Nation is going through.
Its almost like if you systematically fire all the lawyers who are good at their job fron the Justice Department, youre left being incapable of serving up a win for the american consumer… as Mel Allen used to say, how bout that!
I don’t know if brain drain is an issue here. If they ultimately lost the trial, then we could have that discussion. But from the reporting and the Attorney General statements I’ve seen, there was a LOT of damaging stuff coming out about Live Nation, including phone calls of threatening conversations and other stuff. 98% of legal actions end up being settled. Trials are always last resorts. There is an incentive for all parties to settle, because trials are so costly. But it really feels like the Justice Department had lost the will to prosecute this case.
Also, since so many states are involved, you have attorneys from the states as part of this process. That’s also why the trial continues forward.
I mean it’s more than losing their will. They’re just unwilling to prosecute Monopoly cases or anything that works against big corporate right now.
But if you’re gonna cut a lame deal, you do that six months, or six weeks ago, not after you’ve been through a week of trial, all the discovery, the subpoena of witnesses, they production of evidence presentations, etc. That’s what’s strange about this. They were RIGHT THERE, and according to the people in the court room, it was going well for the prosecution.
Yeah the deal is the government being bribed to cut a deal for big business. The thing the American people voted for
There very well could be some bribe or backroom deal involved here, though obviously I’m not reporting on that. When you have the majority of the plaintiffs not signing off and even the judge saying he wasn’t properly notified, that’s a pretty wild situation.
Not to veer too far off into politics, but this is very similar the Hunter Biden plea deal that happened right as his trial was starting. It was a super sweetheart deal that even the judge was like “What?” and eventually didn’t go through because it was so lopsided. It appears that might happen in this situation too. The judge doesn’t appear to want to play ball with this Justice Department settlement.
I don’t know what you mean. Surely all those campaign and Ballroom “donations” were entirely because corporate America wanted to give back to the American taxpayer!
But Kid Rock wore his bedazzled bald eagle outfit to the Oval office. A clear sign that this issue would solved for average Americans. Curious.
I’m not going to fault Kid Rock, or Taylor Swift, or Zach Bryan, or anyone else who has brought attention to this matter. You poll the public, and the vast majority of people will tell you they want something done with the Live Nation/Ticketmaster monopoly, and not what is in this settlement deal. This is a classic case of big business using its leverage to get its way while the people who are charge with representing our interests fail to. Good on the states that are balking at this deal and making a big deal about it.
I’m also not gonna fault Kid Rock for lobbying against Live Nation/Ticket Master. But I will also say, if he doesn’t (and maybe he already did – no clue) speak out against the DOJ just not bothering to care about this issue, then his words mean less than nothing IMO.
Hard to take you seriously when you shoot a soft core porn video with RFK Jr. and then watch one of the things you so loudly campaigned for this Administration to address (Ticketmaster) go quietly into the night and not say something.
I agree. Anyone with a bullhorn or a platform needs to be using that right now to make sure this matter is at least litigated properly by a jury of our peers. This isn’t lobbying for something that might happen in the future. The trial is happening right now.
The problem is you have a lot of artists who don’t want to get sideways with Live Nation, the Justice Department, or the Trump Administration, and so there are perverse incentives to stay silent.
Absolutely true that big business is able to lobby for it’s own interests above the law. It totally is a monopoly and it looks like there no longer is the ability to effectively break up monopolies. Funny enough if Live Nation and Ticketmaster were broken up and ticket sales were divied up into smaller companies the scalping market would return more to individuals. Scams would be more rampant and ironically there would be a call for more regulation, but individuals would have to go thru more effort to find high-priced front row scalped tickets and the only true security would be using the ticket you purchased yourself. Allowing aspects of the free market to be the ‘wild west’ is better. Whenever you hear “it really was the wild west back then..” it is almost always viewed as having been better.
This was the inevitable conclusion when Gail Slater – who President Trump (2.0) named as his chief anti-trust enforcer – was first sidelined and then eventually pushed out recently.
Slater was someone who even entities who generally dislike Trump respected and saw as someone who would at least somewhat follow in the Lina Khan vein of attempting to work on monopolization in industry. I recall the CEO of Proton writing a pretty forceful blog in support of her.
2028 could be the first year since Bob Dole where this is a push for an independent presidential candidate that focuses on economic issues.
i am not surprised it has been settled but I am surprised at the deal. It does make one wonder why the Government bothered to take action at all. Not much of a deal.
The DOJ started this investigation into Live Nation/Ticketmaster back in May 2024 under then-AG Merrick Garland. The Trump (2.0) Administration inherited it and then kept moving it forward until dropping it late last month.
My guess is this investigation was a lower profile one for the department and once the folks with actual power became more aware of it, pushed to drop it to appease big corporate business interests.
A lot of these investigations take years to play out. Lina Khan when she was head of the FTC inherited a couple of Big Tech investigations from the Trump 1.0 Administration as well. Meta and Google Anti-Trust in particular.
Source: savingcountrymusic.com