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Comment by davidgh | Hacker News Reader

To be sure, Live Nation owns and / or operates many of the venues. They also provide management services to artists. So it’s not that TicketMaster demands exclusivity from the venue, they #are# the venue.

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And in court they will probably argue that this is vertical integration that creates savings they pass along to the consumer. DOJ will likely argue they are pocketing it.

Has the DOJ ever won an argument against just vertical integration in the entire history of the US?

This is a most beautiful question. Perhaps the baby bells? That’s about all I can think of

The baby bells were split horizontally by region so I wouldn’t count that.

That was splitting one level of the vertical integration, really.

If isn’t just vertical integration. It’s also abuse of monopoly power. I’m sure the DoJ won’t have any trouble showing how much market share TM/LN have.

I think the real issue is the limited supply of tickets to the most popular shows. Supply and demand dictates that the prices for these limited goods be very high, yet social norms discourage artists from charging the true market value for their tickets (fans will rebel against their favourite artist for perceived greed). So TM provides an effective reputation-laundering service to the artists and collects a hefty fee for it. If the DoJ were to win their case and succeed in breaking up the TM monopoly then I bet the extra revenue would go to some other ticket brokers, not to the artist or into consumers’ pockets.

It’s partly this but also the artists benefit in other ways from large strata of their fan base being able to attend live shows, but merch in person and mingle with each other. The venue and Ticketmaster only benefit from the ticket sales.

Scalpers are also a source of guaranteed sales, so you're diluting the risk of a concert because someone is already buying up all seats already for you and running the risk of not being able to sell them at a higher price later.

DOJ won against Paramount et al. in 1949. Consent decrees were in place for over 70 years.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/paramount-decree-review

It is a very different world than the world of 1949.

The Paramount Decrees way back in the 1940s/1950s: that's why Hollywood studios cannot produce movies and own the theaters which exhibit them. It's also similar to the (much more complex) reasons TV Service Providers (DirectTV, Spectrum, XFinity et. al) are separate from TV Networks, and why you don't see Disney trying to buy, say, DirectTV. Of course, streaming upended almost all of that.

> It’s also similar to the (much more complex) reasons TV Service Providers (DirectTV, Spectrum, XFinity et. al) are separate from TV Networks

Tell me more about how the “TV Service Provider” Xfinity (a subsidiary of Comcast) is separate from the various TV networks run by NBC Universal, LLC (a subsidiary of Comcast).

You seem to be correct about the studio/theater bit, but Comcast owns both NBC and Xfinity, so clearly that bit of intended separation ain't working.

If you look at many older anti-trust cases from before 1970s, the bar for successful enforcement often seems unbelievably low when comparing it to how things are today. Take a look at this, for example: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/370/294/

But then there was a drastic change in approach to anti-trust during the Reagan era:

"Bork argues that the original intent of antitrust laws as well as economic efficiency makes consumer welfare and the protection of competition, rather than competitors, the only goals of antitrust law. Thus, while it was appropriate to prohibit cartels that fix prices and divide markets and mergers that create monopolies, practices that are allegedly exclusionary, such as vertical agreements and price discrimination, did not harm consumers and so should not be prohibited."

"From 1977 to 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States repeatedly adopted views stated in The Antitrust Paradox in such cases as Continental Television, Inc. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 433 U.S. 36 (1977), Broadcast Music, Inc. v. CBS, Inc., NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, Spectrum Sports, Inc. v. McQuillan, State Oil Co. v. Khan, Verizon v. Trinko, and Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., legalizing many practices previously prohibited."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox)

DOJ won against A&P in 1946 and again on appeal in 1949.

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1473571/united-states-...

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2311543/united-states-...

Yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

Ah yes, that one[0].

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/lcy7zc/a...

Yes, against Hollywood. Before then you could only see a Fox movie at a Fox theater

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