Morgan Harper, Director Of Policy & Advocacy at American Economic Liberties Project, explains why Ticketmaster needs to be broken up.
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00:00The goals of the Breakup Ticketmaster Coalition are pretty simple. It's a breakup ticketmaster.
00:04We had a few different constituencies come together here. Artists, fans, consumer advocates
00:10that were all recognizing the harm stemming from this monopoly in the live events industry and
00:15wanted to provide a platform for people to reach out to the Department of Justice and say this
00:20company needs to be stopped. It needs to be split up. Breakup Ticketmaster. And as a result of that
00:25we sent over one actually people in just throughout the country sent over 100,000 letters
00:30to the Department of Justice demanding that Department of Justice open investigation and
00:36break up this monopoly. And so now seeing that the Department of Justice Antitrust Division has
00:40actually filed a complaint, has started the process of a lawsuit that could result in the
00:46eventual breakup of Live Nation Ticketmaster. Our antitrust laws in the United States have been on
00:52the books for over 100 years. The Sherman Act for example. And these laws were created to prevent
00:58or to stop monopolizing conduct when businesses were suppressing competition in any particular
01:04market. And so that's why we've seen in the Department of Justice's antitrust case relying
01:08on these laws that have been around for quite some time. They should be sufficient to stop this kind
01:13of conduct. Now we'll have to see what a court of law decides in response to this lawsuit and
01:19eventually how a jury would decide this. The DOJ is asking for a jury trial here. But it does
01:25appear that this is the definition of monopolizing conduct and it is inflicting a lot of harm across
01:31the economy both to consumers, to fans, and to importantly other businesses which doesn't always
01:36get highlighted as much. But there's a lot of businesses in the live events industry that are
01:41not able to compete as a result of this market power. It's not just a consumer issue. Folks that
01:45want to own venues and be more independent in doing so. People who run concession companies
01:50at venues that are trying to make money off of sales that would happen during a concert there.
01:55All of these different types of companies and businesses of all sizes are trying desperately
02:00to compete in this market that Live Nation Ticketmaster is dominating. And that could
02:04be addressed through this antitrust lawsuit.