Get the latest gossip

'It Is Time to Break It Up': Inside the DOJ's Blockbuster Lawsuit Against Live Nation

An inside look at the landmark DOJ lawsuit against Live Nation. The Justice Department has accused Live Nation-Ticketmaster of being a monopoly.

The next morning, Kanter will don a sharp suit and head to the Robert F. Kennedy Building in Washington, D.C., where his team of approximately two dozen attorneys is preparing for trial in one of the most significant antitrust cases in decades: a blockbuster lawsuit that could result in a breakup of the live-music behemoth Live Nation-Ticketmaster. Dan Wall, Live Nation’s executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, says the DOJ’s suit “ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices,” such as high production costs, predatory scalping, and even musicians themselves. Testifying to Congress, guitarist Stone Gossard called the relationship between promoters and venues “incestuous” and decried “the lack of any national competition for Ticketmaster that has created the situation we’re dealing with today.” (The department closed the investigation the following year with no action.)

Get the Android app