Real Clear Markets (02/24/20) Perry, Mark

American Enterprise Institute scholar Mark Perry writes that the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger in 2010 created a titanic monopoly dedicated to dominating the ticket supply chain and dictating the prices consumers pay. Last December, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) declared that Live Nation has "repeatedly and over the course of several years engaged in conduct that ... violated the Final Judgment" intended "to prohibit the company from retaliating against concert venues for using another ticketing company, threatening concert venues, or undertaking other specified actions against concert venues for 10 years." Perry adds that new technologies further grant Ticketmaster the power to quash competitors and control consumer behavior far outside the activities that DOJ sought to limit in 2010. "What we need now is a new and aggressive approach that will protect a fundamental principle: the ability of ticketholders to freely transfer, give away or resell their tickets," he argues. Perry suggests that the BOSS Act currently being mulled by Congress offers considerable protections for consumers and market competition, and would curb a complete Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly.

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