Taylor Swift is at the center of the pop culture universe as the biggest star in music.
Now she’s going to be in the middle of one of the biggest legal cases of the year.
And Taylor Swift was stunned when she was wrapped up in this Merrick Garland case.
Biden Justice Department files a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation
The Biden Justice Department filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, of having an illegal monopoly over live entertainment.
Ticketmaster controls most of the tickets, sold to concerts, sporting events, and live events in the United States.
The company has faced complaints from consumers over the surcharges it adds on top of the prices of tickets, among other practices.
“We allege that 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 statement. “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-Ticketmaster.”
Live Nation is accused of undermining its competition by the Justice Department with tactics such as locking venues into long contracts and treating retaliation against anyone who didn’t use Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster sells about 70% of the tickets for major concert venues in the country.
Ticketmaster botching presale for Taylor Swift tour brought Congress into the fight
Pop megastar Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour became the most financially successful tour in music history.
And also sparked outrage against Ticketmaster.
In 2022, Ticketmaster’s website was overwhelmed and crashed during the presale for the Era Tour by users and bots rushing to snatch up tickets.
That fiasco prompted a Congressional hearing where Live Nation executives testified in front of the Senate.
Swift’s legion of fans, known as “Swifties,” banded together to come after Ticketmaster and Live Nation after the Eras Tour presale debacle.
They launched an online campaign to break up the ticket vendor’s control over the industry.
“It shows the power of bringing people together who have something in common, and it might not be what you would expect they have in common,” Stephanie Aly, a Swift and digital organizer, told NBC News.
Swifties filed two class action lawsuits against Live Nation after the Eras Tour presale failure.
University of Notre Dame Political Science Professor Jeff Harden said that Swift’s fans are a force to be reckoned with.
Swifties are “very good at bonding together, using their own time and resources to solve problems,” Harden explained. “They’re also very digitally literate.”
He published a study on Swift’s fans mobilizing to take action after the Eras Tour website crashed.
Harden added that the pop star’s fans are “some of the most intense fans of any musical artist or sports team or anything else that I’ve ever witnessed personally. So when all those things come together, you’ve got a really powerful group.”
Taylor Swift could have inadvertently set in motion the downfall of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
