Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Matt Stoller on Live Nation verdict_ This victory matters

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Matt Stoller on Live Nation verdict_ This victory matters · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: I'm joining by Math Stolen, director of Research at the
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  Speaker 1: American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit that advocates for corporate
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  Speaker 1: accountability and enforcement of anti crush regulations. He's also the
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  Speaker 1: co host of the podcast Organized Money and the author
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  Speaker 1: of the book Goliath, The one hundred Year War between
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  Speaker 1: Monopoly Power and Democracy. Matt, Welcome, Thank you for being
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  Speaker 1: with us. I have to say I read a lot
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  Speaker 1: of your stuff, and sometimes I think you get your
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  Speaker 1: head in the clouds and it's piyeing the sky and
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  Speaker 1: the systems two in entrench it's never going to change.
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  Speaker 1: It really changed. This is a I cannot overstate this.
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  Speaker 1: This is a very big deal.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. Sometimes I think I'm
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  Speaker 2: pyeing the sky, and sometimes I think it's possible to
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  Speaker 2: change things. You know, you never know because the plitocrats
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  Speaker 2: are in charge, but they're starting to lose. And so
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  Speaker 2: I think that that's really important for people to understand.
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  Speaker 2: This is we are in an extreme moment of monopoly power.
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  Speaker 2: We have a monopoly crisis. However, we're also in a
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  Speaker 2: coming moment of democratic legitimacy where we punch back and
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  Speaker 2: these decisions. This is a budget them this isn't the
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  Speaker 2: only one. Are sort of how we start to see
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  Speaker 2: that happening.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's a bit of a stretch. We
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  Speaker 1: don't have to get into this particular specific conversation. But
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  Speaker 1: I look at Hungary last weekend, where it wasn't some
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  Speaker 1: massive ideological shift in politics. People just got mad at
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  Speaker 1: the fact that oligarchy and co and corruption and all
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  Speaker 1: this control the price they pay. One of the interesting
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  Speaker 1: things about this is that it's not ideological. This is
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  Speaker 1: this is just this is not democratic and republican. This
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  Speaker 1: is about a company that touches a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: that were taking advantage of its monopolistic power, right.
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  Speaker 2: I mean Ticketmaster couldn't sell tickets. The name is ticket
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  Speaker 2: Master and they couldn't sell tickets. Okay, you gotta you
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  Speaker 2: can over charge people, you could like scan people, but
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  Speaker 2: you gotta at at some level sell sell tickets. If
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  Speaker 2: that's good, if you're good to call your celf Ticketmaster.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think that's kind of what drove people
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  Speaker 2: to say, hey, you gotta do something. You can't just be,
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  Speaker 2: you can't just take And I think that's where people
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  Speaker 2: are now, where they're like, oh, you know, Google was
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  Speaker 2: cool tenure years ago, and all these companies were like,
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  Speaker 2: they seem to be sort of innovative, and now they're
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  Speaker 2: just totally extractive, and that's just going to bring that
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  Speaker 2: is bringing a political pushback. This is one of the
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  Speaker 2: signs of that.
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  Speaker 1: Is there, tell me the ways in which this decision,
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  Speaker 1: this judgment applies elsewhere easily or doesn't apply because it's
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  Speaker 1: so specific to the nuances of Live Nation and Ticketmaster,
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  Speaker 1: Because it seems like this is pretty broad. It's like,
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  Speaker 1: you don't get to use your monopolistic power to simply
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  Speaker 1: extract as much as you possibly can from you from
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  Speaker 1: your customers and your clients.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is a jury trial, which means that
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  Speaker 2: the law, it's not like the case law isn't going
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  Speaker 2: to necessarily change that much. But that's not what's important.
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  Speaker 2: What's important here is that this is actually a signal
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  Speaker 2: to everyone in corporate America. Just as when the Obama
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  Speaker 2: administration approved the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster and
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  Speaker 2: no one did anything about it for sixteen years, and
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  Speaker 2: you know, went Pearl Jam before that in the nineteen nineties,
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  Speaker 2: no one did anything about that. That was this is
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  Speaker 2: a signal to corporate America anything goes. And so now
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  Speaker 2: it's if you're a CEO and you you're asking, hey,
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  Speaker 2: can I do this thing? Can I overcharge for this
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  Speaker 2: or overcharge for that, or can I coerce in this
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  Speaker 2: way or that way? Your lawyer has to tell you, well,
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  Speaker 2: there was this ticketmaster verdict, and so you're going to
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  Speaker 2: have that in your mind when you make these decisions.
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  Speaker 2: And that's how these things actually really change. The enabled
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  Speaker 2: lawlessness of non enforcement and of judges letting these guys
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  Speaker 2: do whatever they want creates an environment of lawlessness among
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  Speaker 2: the ten thousand CEOs or you know, five thousand. However,
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  Speaker 2: when they are big, big companies and say oh, I
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  Speaker 2: can do whatever I want now, they're going to start
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  Speaker 2: to hear maybe I shouldn't. Of course, it's too early
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  Speaker 2: to know because we haven't seen a remedy, and there's
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  Speaker 2: lots of ways this can get screwed up. But it's
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  Speaker 2: a big deal and it does say to people, hey,
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  Speaker 2: if you're going to be a ticketmaster, there will be pushback,
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  Speaker 2: you will have to sit on the stand, you will
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  Speaker 2: have a jury, you know, hearing about what you did.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, like that happened a couple of weeks
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  Speaker 2: go with Google and Meta and their addictive products. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: you are saying you can't.
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  Speaker 1: Do that, so that you know there is also groundbreakingd
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  Speaker 1: We have people on the show saying these are not
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  Speaker 1: this is not nothing. These are big deals that juries
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  Speaker 1: because they're a good example. After Meta and that situation,
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  Speaker 1: there are I don't know eleven hundred trials that are
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  Speaker 1: about to follow that as a result that were waiting
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  Speaker 1: for the outcome on this. So I think that's it's
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  Speaker 1: not just this one trial, it's what follows.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's a signal and it also
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  Speaker 2: I mean it also is a signal to whoever want
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  Speaker 2: wins the midterms. It's right now there's kind of no
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  Speaker 2: clear direction on what's going to happen. I mean, it
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  Speaker 2: seems like there's Trump's very unpopular, but this is kind
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  Speaker 2: of giving an indication to whoever wins those elections. This
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  Speaker 2: is what we want you to do. We want you
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  Speaker 2: to push back on this elite lawlessness, the fusion of
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  Speaker 2: corporate and political power, which this ticketmaster is a great example,
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  Speaker 2: but there are lots of great examples. Go do something
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  Speaker 2: about it. That's what democra means. And so I think
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  Speaker 2: this is you can't overstate the importance of this decision
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  Speaker 2: and then of a bunch of other related decisions that
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  Speaker 2: have taken place and will take place.
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  Speaker 1: But you say something interesting because Gil Slater, who was
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  Speaker 1: an enforcer for this administration and then it sort of
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  Speaker 1: seemed like didn't want to do what they were doing,
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  Speaker 1: posted on x after this verdict. This is somebody who
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  Speaker 1: worked for the Trump administration. Congratulations to the mighty State
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  Speaker 1: AGS uh ok G coalition that stood behind this case.
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  Speaker 1: You made anti trust history today. You fought the good fight,
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  Speaker 1: you finished the race, and you kept the faith. I
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  Speaker 1: guess there's also a message when you say midterms all
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  Speaker 1: the way up back to government to say, hey, you
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  Speaker 1: can you can let these things play out at jury trials,
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  Speaker 1: or you can actually take the enforcement authority that you
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  Speaker 1: have and do this first and be ahead of the people.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the what what did the Trump administration DJ?
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  Speaker 2: Because the Trump DOJ also congratulated the State ags for
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  Speaker 2: doing you know what they did, and the Trump It's
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  Speaker 2: just a very strange thing where these people who actually
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  Speaker 2: kind of defrauded and engaged in terrible behavior are now
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  Speaker 2: pretending that they had something to do with it. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: you know, Slater would have accepted a settlement and she
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  Speaker 2: just happened to leave before that, so you know, but
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  Speaker 2: there were you know, there were a bunch of Republican
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  Speaker 2: states that were part of this Ticketmaster case too, So
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  Speaker 2: it's not necessarily partisan. And what that shows, what's later's
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  Speaker 2: comments and what a me to set a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: comments from the Trump administration praising this decision show, is
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  Speaker 2: that they know they were wrong, Like they know they
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  Speaker 2: shouldn't have done what they did, and they're trying to
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  Speaker 2: pretend like they didn't do it. And I think that
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  Speaker 2: shows just how weak their position is and how easily
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  Speaker 2: they can be forced to actually change direction when people actually,
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  Speaker 2: you know, put it to them. And so that's really
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  Speaker 2: the task here. Can we get Can we use our ballots,
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  Speaker 2: can we use our voice, Can we use our ability
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  Speaker 2: to take people to court? Can we use our protests?
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  Speaker 2: What can we do to put it to these people
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  Speaker 2: because they know what the right thing to do is
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  Speaker 2: and they're just choosing not to do it.
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  Speaker 1: Matt, great conversation, Thank you for joining us this morning.
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  Speaker 1: Matt Stiller was the director of research at the American
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  Speaker 1: Economic Liberties Project. He's the co host of the podcast
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  Speaker 1: Organized Money,