The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit Thursday against Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, claiming that the company has violated antitrust laws and engaged in practices that hurt the entire entertainment industry.
Live Nation controls nearly two-thirds of concert promotion at major entertainment venues and around 80% of ticketing, as well as manages more than 400 musical artists, the Justice Department said. It accuses the company of harmful tactics such as hindering competition through threats of retaliation, signing long-term, exclusionary deals with venues and pushing clients to exclusively use Ticketmaster.
“Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release. “The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation.”
Live Nation responded that the claims were “baseless” and that the lawsuit ignores factors at play such as increasing production costs and 24/7 online ticket scalping.
