Legal
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Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) is facing yet another lawsuit. West along with his Yeezy brand and former head of staff Milo Yiannopoulos were sued by eight alleged former employees, who claim they were “subjected to intolerable harassment and discrimination.”
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The sprawling lawsuit was filed in district court with the Central District of California on Saturday (June 29) and has been viewed by Billboard. A portion of the plaintiffs claim they were minors as young as 14 years old while working at Yeezy.
Plaintiffs ranging from ages 14 to 25 came from across the United States and other countries such as the United Kingdom, Hungary and Nigeria to work at Yeezy.
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However, the plaintiffs said they overworked for “inhuman” hours in a segregated working environment where Black and African employees were separated and given “less favorable” work assignments.
Various plaintiffs were tasked with building Ye’s scrapped YZY Porn venture. Minors claim they were exposed to pornographic images pertaining to the x-rated endeavor.
Around April 27, 2024, one employee alleges that Ye’s wife Bianca Censori shared a link to “hardcore pornography” with them slated to be part of the YZY Porn app.
A plaintiff known in the docs as “John Doe 1” claims he was exposed to pornographic images which were disseminated in group chats as part of the team’s communication channels. Another plaintiff who kept their identity hidden is listed as “John Doe 2” in the lawsuit and claims they were subjected to a “highly inappropriate and distressing work environment.”
“Our team looks forward to achieving justice on behalf of our very deserving clients for theshocking working environment that they were forced to endure,” said Ben Lockyer of LockyerLaw LLC.
Jordanna Thigpen of Thigpen Legal added: “Discrimination is intolerable anywhere, anytime. We believe a jury will agree that these employers must be accountable.”
All eight former Yeezy employees claim they were not paid for their work during their time working for Ye.
The legal activity has been mounting for Ye in recent months. He was hit with a sexual assault lawsuit in June by former assistant Lauren Pisciotta, who claimed she faced a “systematic” onslaught of sexual harassment and was sent graphic text messages from the “Good Life” rapper.
West settled another suit in June related to his Vultures album when he reached an agreement with Donna Summers’ estate to resolve a copyright lawsuit that accused him of interpolating her 1977 hit “I Feel Love” without permission in his song “Good (Don’t Die).”
Billboard has reached out to Ye’s reps for comment.
Justin Timberlake jokingly referenced his arrest for allegedly driving while intoxicated at his tour stop in Boston.
On Saturday (June 29), the 43-year-old singer and actor cracked a one-liner about the incident during his concert at Boston’s TD Garden amid his Forget Tomorrow world tour.
“So, uh, is there anyone here tonight that is driving?” Timberlake asked the cheering crowd in a fan-captured clip posted on TikTok. “No, I’m just kidding,” he quickly added.
The comment drew a mix of gasps and laughter from the crowd. The “SexyBack” followed the wisecrack by asking the audience who’s attending for the first time and who’s seen him before, according to TMZ.
Timberlake was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in Sag Harbor, N.Y. on June 17. He was arraigned on one count of “driving while intoxicated” the following day.
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“It was ascertained that the defendant was operating said vehicle in an intoxicated condition in that his eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot, and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests,” according to the police report filed by officer Michael Arkinson.
“I had one martini and I followed my friends home,” Arkinson also quoted the 10-time Grammy winner as saying in his report.
Last week, Timberlake broke his silence following the arrest during his show at Chicago’s United Center on June 21.
“It’s been a tough week,” the singer told concert-goers. “I know I’m hard to love sometimes but you keep loving me right back.” He added, “We’ve been together through ups and downs and lefts and rights … but you’re here and I’m here, and nothing can change this moment right now.”
JT’s lawyer Edward Burke Jr. has stated that he will “vigorously” defend the star against the allegations. “He will have a lot to say at the appropriate time,” Burke said in a statement.
Timberlake’s next court hearing is scheduled for July 26, the same day he is scheduled to perform at Tauron Arena Krakow in Poland.
Diplo is speaking out after being accused of violating “revenge porn” laws.
The 45-year-old DJ and producer, whose real name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, took to social media on Friday (June 28) to address a civil lawsuit accusing him of sharing sexually-explicit videos and images of a former romantic partner without her permission.
“Don’t believe what you read in the news,” Diplo wrote on Instagram alongside a carousel of images and videos of himself. “I don’t own a 100 million dollar mansion, I didn’t pay 450k euros to rave in Ibiza and I didn’t send dirty snapchats in 2017.”
He added, “Let’s talk about how lucky I am to party with you guys and how good the raves are here in Europe .. (Athens Croatia Prague done .. París up next).”
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In a complaint filed Thursday (June 27) in Los Angeles federal court, an unnamed Jane Doe accuser claimed the DJ/producer recorded their sexual encounters and shared the materials with others on Snapchat “without plaintiff’s knowledge or consent.”
In her complaint, the woman claims she had consensual sexual relationship with Diplo from 2016 to 2023. During that time, she says she occasionally “gave defendant Diplo permission to record them having sex, but never gave him permission to distribute those images and videos to third parties and reiterated that he was not to record them without her explicit consent.”
In a statement on Friday, Diplo’s attorney Bryan Freedman strongly denied the new allegations by referencing previous lawsuits claiming abuse by the artist.
“In every case where there has been an allegation of improper conduct made against Wes, the result has been either an immediate dismissal of a bogus lawsuit coupled with an apology, a court-ordered award for Wes in excess of $1.2 million, or the slow demise of an obvious shakedown attempt that has gone absolutely nowhere,” Freedman said.
“Time and again, Wes has been targeted by a group of untrustworthy individuals and their unscrupulous lawyers, cobbling together falsehoods in search of a meritless payday. This suit seems to be just more of the same, which is why we have no reason to believe that this will end any differently than all the others.”
See Diplo’s response on Instagram here.
Eagles singer Don Henley filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday (June 28) seeking the return of his handwritten notes and song lyrics from the band’s 1976 album Hotel California.
The civil complaint filed in Manhattan federal court comes after prosecutors in March abruptly dropped criminal charges midway through a trial against three collectibles experts accused of scheming to sell the documents.
The Eagles co-founder has maintained the pages were stolen and had vowed to pursue a lawsuit when the criminal case was dropped against rare books dealer Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and rock memorabilia seller Edward Kosinski.
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“These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit,” Daniel Petrocelli, Henley’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement Friday.
According to the lawsuit, the handwritten pages remain in the custody of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which declined to comment Friday on the litigation.
Lawyers for Kosinski and Inciardi dismissed the legal action as baseless, noting the criminal case was dropped after it was determined that Henley misled prosecutors by withholding critical information.
“Don Henley is desperate to rewrite history,” Shawn Crowley, Kosinski’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to litigating this case and bringing a lawsuit against Henley to hold him accountable for his repeated lies and misuse of the justice system.”
Inciardi’s lawyer, Stacey Richman, said in a separate statement that the lawsuit attempts to “bully” and “perpetuate a false narrative.”
A lawyer for Horowitz, who isn’t named as a defendant as he doesn’t claim ownership of the materials, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
During the trial, the men’s lawyers argued that Henley gave the lyrics pages decades ago to a writer who worked on a never-published Eagles biography and later sold the handwritten sheets to Horowitz. He, in turn, sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who started putting some of the pages up for auction in 2012.
The criminal case was abruptly dropped after prosecutors agreed that defense lawyers had essentially been blindsided by 6,000 pages of communications involving Henley and his attorneys and associates.
Prosecutors and the defense said they received the material only after Henley and his lawyers made a last-minute decision to waive their attorney-client privilege shielding legal discussions.
Judge Curtis Farber, who presided over the nonjury trial that opened in late February, said witnesses and their lawyers used attorney-client privilege “to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging” and that prosecutors “were apparently manipulated.”
The federal judge presiding over the Department of Justice’s sweeping antitrust case against Live Nation thinks the trial can begin as early as March 2026, according to recent federal court filings.
Judge Arun Subramanian explained Thursday (June 27) in the case’s first pre-trial hearing that he hoped jury selection could begin that month, although he stopped short of setting a firm date.
One of the first items of business for Subramanian, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden in 2023, is to rule on a planned motion by Live Nation to move the case from the Southern District of New York to the federal circuit court in Washington, D.C., where Live Nation’s 2010 merger with Ticketmaster was first approved. Subramanian said he believed his court could properly preside over the case but that he would fully consider the advisement.
Prior to being appointed to the federal bench, Subramanian was a partner at litigation firm Susman Godfrey LLP, which currently represents Live Nation in the 2021 Astroworld festival class action lawsuit. Subramanian did not work on that case.
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Government attorneys said in a Tuesday (July 25) filing that they plan to bring additional claims against Live Nation, noting the new claims could include information that attorneys from Live Nation have designated as highly confidential and might ask the courts to seal.
Attorneys for the government “do not believe any of the information at issue merits sealing or overcomes the presumption of public access to judicial documents,” the filings explain, noting that if Live Nation doesn’t budge, the government will ask the judge to rule on the matter.
Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers also complained that Live Nation attorneys have delayed discovery requests and failed to “fully comply with any of the United States’s three pre-complaint civil investigative demands” dating back to October 2022.
“It took Defendants nearly a year to start producing custodial documents,” the filing reads, noting that “their responses to many specifications remain incomplete today.”
Lawyers for Live Nation called the government’s discovery allegation false, noting that “since October 2022, Defendants have spent over 200,000 attorney hours reviewing documents, produced over 600,000 documents from nearly 70 custodians, produced over 33 million observations of data, submitted dozens of written responses, and provided investigative deposition testimony from three high-level executives in response to Plaintiffs’ investigations. In addition, DOJ has access to nearly two million documents that Defendants produced during prior investigations.”
Attorneys for Live Nation added that they want “any documents, data or testimony Plaintiffs received from third parties during their investigation” no later than July 22, 2024.
Live Nation is also challenging the government’s unusual request for a jury trial instead of having the verdict determined by a judge. “If it occurred, it would be the first jury trial ever in a government-brought monopolization case,” the company’s attorneys wrote.
Outside of Live Nation, the government also says it plans to issue more than 100 third-party subpoenas to “ticketers, promoters, ticket brokers, venues, venue management companies, artists, and artists’ agents and managers.”
Live Nation declined to comment for this story.
Live Nation is being represented by longtime attorney and litigator Timothy L. O’Mara and Alfred C. Pfeiffer, both partners at Latham and Watkins. Pfeiffer is the former co-chair of the firm’s Antitrust & Competition Practice. Ticketmaster is represented by David R. Marriott with Cravath, who successfully represented Illumina against the Federal Trade Commission and secured a 2022 victory for the Louis Dreyfus Company against DOJ efforts to block the sale of Imperial Sugar to U.S. Sugar.
The government is represented by Bonny Sweeney, who joined the DOJ in 2022. Sweeney formerly served as a partner at San Francisco firm Hausfeld where she was co-chair of its U.S. antitrust practice group. In 2023, she was named antitrust lawyer of the year by the California Lawyers Association.
Pharrell Williams and Louis Vuitton are facing a lawsuit over their launch of a high-end line of “Pocket Socks,” filed by a California company that says it’s been using that same name for more than a decade on a similar product.
In a case filed last week in Los Angeles federal court, Pocket Socks Inc. says the luxury brand’s product — a literal sock-with-a-pocket that launched at Paris Fashion Week last year and sells for the whopping price of $530 — infringes its existing trademark rights to the name.
“Much attention and publicity has been generated for Louis Vuitton’s ‘Pocket Socks,’ including defendants, the press, and consumers using the name ‘Pocket Socks’ for their product which irreparably injures Pocket Socks’ longstanding brand and trademark rights,” the company’s lawyers write in the June 20 complaint.
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Louis Vuitton announced in February 2023 that Williams would serve as the company’s men’s creative director, and he debuted his first line for the company later that year at Men’s Fashion Week in Paris.
One of the items apparently rolled out at last year’s event was the Pocket Socks — a pair of knitted socks that feature a pocket adorned with a pearl. The socks received some notoriety in January when Jermaine Dupri was razzed on social media for wearing them during his Super Bowl halftime performance. Though currently unavailable for purchase, the socks are listed on Louis Vuitton’s UK website for £420 — roughly $530 in U.S. dollars.
Louis Vuitton’s new product didn’t sit well with Pocket Socks Inc., which says it’s been using that exact same name since 2012 for its own line of socks that feature a zippered pocket sewn into each pair. In its lawsuit, the company says it owns several federal trademark registrations for the brand and that the new product clearly infringes those rights.
In a statement announcing the new lawsuit, Pocket Socks Inc. claims Louis Vuitton’s new line “threatens to undermine the hard work and dedication” that has gone into building the brand: “This massive luxury brand and their designer Pharrell Williams should know better and behave within the law,” said CEO Evan Papel.
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Williams and Louis Vuitton of infringing both the trademark to the name as well as the so-called “trade dress” — meaning the actual look of the product. The sale of similar-looking socks under the same name is “likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive consumers,” the lawsuit claims.
As the case moves forward, one possible defense argument from Williams and Louis Vuitton could be that the name Pocket Socks is too “descriptive” to serve as a trademark. Under U.S. trademark law, terms that merely describe the goods or services being sold cannot be locked up as an exclusive brand name.
Neither a rep Williams nor Louis Vuitton immediately returned requests for comment.
Duane “Keefe D” Davis, the man charged in connection with Tupac Shakur‘s 1999 murder, has been denied release despite coming up with the money to post bail, Las Vegas ABC affiliate KTNV reports.
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Davis had notified the Clark County District Court in Nevada on June 20 that he would be able to post his $750,000 bail and faced Clark County Judge Carli Kierny on June 25 to hear the conditions for his release to house arrest and to verify where the funds had come from. The next day, the magistrate denied releasing him due to concerns over the legitimacy of the funds posted by entertainment manager Cash “Wack 100” Jones, according to KTNV.
Jones, who currently manages The Game and Blueface, appeared in court through a video link and said the $112,500 down payment was “a gift” and claimed there wasn’t a quid pro quo arraignment between him and Davis.
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“The court cannot say that Mr. Davis has shown the funds were legally obtained,” the judge wrote in her order, according to the local ABC affiliate, which also provided video of the hearing.
Jones had appeared on VladTV in a video interview posted in early June and said he would bail Davis out if he allowed him to make a TV series about his life. “It’s only $75,000,” he told DJ Vlad at the time. “I’ve been thinking about going to get him with the stipulations that I’ll do the series on it.”
But Jones admitted to the court that he sometimes says things for entertainment purposes and to drive engagement.
“That’s what I said to Vlad, but Keefe D is already involved with somebody. I have no contracts with him,” said Jones, according to KTNV. “Before you go on Vlad, you have a discussion about what you’re going to talk about and what needs to be said to draw up views. There’s nothing about Vlad and nothing about YouTube that says that we’re being truthful about what we’re saying for entertainment.”
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Prosecutors responded with a recorded jailhouse phone call between Jones and Davis, during which they seemed to be talking about a contract of sorts. “You got to remember, this s—t can set you up for the rest of your life,” Jones says on the call played by prosectors. “I will get you out, and then we’ll sit down and talk about all that.”
“While Mr. Jones testified he was bonding out Mr. Davis because Mr. Davis was fighting cancer and had been a pillar of the community, his previous interviews with VladTV suggested another motive,” some of the ruling reads, according to KTNV.
Kierny concluded the bank records that Jones provided were “insufficient to make the requisite showing that the $112,500 bail premium was paid by a legitimate source,” according to KOLO 8, a local ABC affiliate in Reno, Nev.
Davis has been in jail since last September, when he was taken into custody for his alleged involvement in the murder of hip-hop legend Shakur.
SiriusXM is facing a class action lawsuit that claims the company has been earning billions in revenue by tacking a deceptive “royalty fee” onto consumers’ bills.
In a complaint filed last week in federal court, attorneys for four aggrieved subscribers claim that SiriusXM adds a “U.S. Music Royalty Fee” – allegedly 21.4 percent of the actual advertised price – onto the normal price that users pay for satellite radio plans.
“This action challenges a deceptive pricing scheme whereby SiriusXM falsely advertises its music plans at lower prices than it actually charges,” attorneys for the users write. “SiriusXM intentionally does not disclose the Fee to its subscribers. SiriusXM even goes so far as to not mention the words ‘U.S. Music Royalty Fee’ in any of its advertising, including in the fine print.”
The lawsuit claims the royalty fee is an “invented” charge that SiriusXM has “deceptively” labeled to falsely suggest that it’s mandated by the government to pay for music rights. In reality, the lawsuit says, it’s a really just a “disguised double-charge for the music plan itself” that no other competing music services imposes on their users.
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“Reasonable consumers would expect that the advertised price for SiriusXM’s music plans would include the fundamental costs of obtaining the permissions necessary to provide the music content that SiriusXM has promised is included in those plans,” lawyers for the subscribers say.
According to the lawsuit, SiriusXM has reaped huge benefits from the “unlawful advertising scheme” since it was implemented in 2009, allegedly collecting $1.36 billion in such royalty fees in 2023 alone. In just in the states of Washington and Florida — the locations where the plaintiffs live — the lawsuit claims Sirius has collected $932 million in royalty fees since the charge was created.
And, according to the complaint, SiriusXM allegedly tries its best to ensure that consumers never find out: “SiriusXM’s sign-up process, automatic renewal process, and policy of not sending monthly or ongoing billing notices or invoices are deliberately designed to prevent subscribers from learning of the U.S. Music Royalty Fee.”
Those allegations echo claims made by New York’s attorney general, who sued SiriusXM in December over claims that the company made it “extremely difficult” for listeners to cancel their subscriptions. In a statement at the time, SiriusXM called those claims “baseless allegations” that “grossly mischaracterize” its customer service practices.
The new lawsuit was filed in the form of a proposed class action, aimed at eventually representing “millions of individuals” who have allegedly paid the royalty fee after seeing a lower price advertised.
“To be clear, plaintiffs are not seeking to regulate the existence or amount of the U.S. Music Royalty Fee,” lawyers for the subscribers wrote. “Rather, plaintiffs want SiriusXM to include the [fee] in the music plan prices it advertises to the general public.”
A representative for SiriusXM did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
Mathew Rosengart, a powerhouse litigator whose resume includes clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter and a stint as a Department of Justice trial attorney, has a stable of high-profile Hollywood clients like Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, Sean Penn and Casey Affleck. But it’s his work with Britney Spears in successfully freeing the pop superstar from a controversial, restrictive and highly scrutinized 13-year conservatorship that catapulted the Greenberg Traurig partner into something of a household name and globally recognized legal eagle.
In a swift four months, from July to November 2021, Rosengart dove headfirst into the probate court case after being handpicked by the singer herself with one goal in mind — to free Spears from the arrangement that limited her rights and left all life decisions in the hands of a team led by her father Jamie Spears. Rosengart accomplished that on Nov. 12, 2021, when L.A. County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny granted a petition to terminate the conservatorship. Over the past three years, Rosengart remained on the case to settle loose ends while resolving an ongoing legal dispute with the singer’s father, Jamie Spears, over his attorney’s fees. The latter matter was resolved two months ago, bringing a quieter end to the entire ordeal but delivering an exclamation point nonetheless.
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There’s no active litigation at this time, Rosengart has said. “As she desired, her freedom now includes that she will no longer need to attend or be involved with court or entangled with legal proceedings in this matter,” he explained in a statement issued on April 26.
As such, Rosengart is closing the chapter as Spears’ litigator of record as he shifts focus toward to other clients. “It has been an honor to serve as Britney’s litigator, to work with her to achieve her goals in obtaining the court-ordered suspension of her former conservator, followed by restoring her fundamental rights and civil liberties, while continuing to protect her and more recently to extricate her from all outstanding litigation and the byzantine probate court proceedings. As I’ve always said, the credit goes to Britney,” Rosengart says in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.
Rosengart’s work with Spears over these past three years extended beyond the conservatorship as he emerged wearing many hats as a trusted counsel and point of contact in a number of high-profile negotiations and situations. It is understood, however, that his role in her life was always as a litigator and such an arrangement would always have an end date.
Rosengart played a key role in shepherding a number of deals and developments in Spears’ life. Those included a massive Simon & Schuster book deal for her best-selling memoir The Woman in Me, a prenuptial agreement and subsequent divorce with ex-husband Sam Asghari, a restraining order against ex-husband Jason Alexander (who attempted to crash her Asghari wedding) and more. In May, following an incident at Chateau Marmont that reportedly left her with an ankle injury, Spears credited Rosengart with helping her through the aftermath. “This man is wonderful!!! He’s like a father to me,” she posted. “I adore you and admire you mister Matthew!!!”
For his work, Spears has repeatedly and profusely praised Rosengart through multiple Instagram posts (her primary source of public commentary) and in The Woman in Me. Rosengart has also been hailed as a hero by the pop star’s legions of fans, a group that doggedly propelled the #FreeBritney movement. Though the attention, compliments and numerous accolades and awards may have been a surprise for Rosengart, it wasn’t completely new. Rosengart once triumphed on behalf of Penn in a defamation case against Lee Daniels, and the Oscar-winning actor has since praised his lawyer as a “tough-as-nails street fighter with a big brain and bigger principles.”
He previously told THR that he leaned on those principles when taking the case. “I’ve always detested bullying, even growing up,” he told THR. “Bullying a woman is even more unacceptable and abhorrent. It was troubling to me both personally and professionally, and I felt I could help stop it, as a lawyer and otherwise. That’s a pledge I made, and it was really rewarding to be able to help.”
Spears’ life started to change in June 2021, when, for the first time, the singer addressed the court herself, by phone, during a conservatorship hearing. Spears spent more than 20 minutes unloading to Judge Brenda Penny in a scorching declaration of life under the “abusive” restrictions she’d been under since 2008. “It is my wish and my dream for all of this to end,” said Spears who requested during prepared remarks that she be able to hire an attorney of her choosing rather than continue with conservatorship-approved counsel Samuel Ingham.
Within days, on July 10, 2021, Rosengart made his way to Spears’ residence where, in a pool house, they met to discuss a plan that would see the powerhouse litigator and former Department of Justice trial attorney to take the case. The court approved his appointment in July, and in a swift four months Spears’ wish was granted. On Nov. 12, 2021, Judge Penny granted a petition to terminate the 13-year arrangement in a landmark probate court decision, delivering a seismic shift for Spears that freed her from the conservatorship and opened her life in a way that left her future open ended.
Last October, California Gov. Mathew Rosengart signed Senate Bill 43 that updated the state’s conservatorship laws for the first time in half a century. The bill was designed to give individuals protected rights while also increasing transparency on the process.
When the conservatorship was terminated that day in November, Rosengart fielded a question from reporters outside the court house in Downtown Los Angeles. “What’s next for Britney?” asked a journalist, to which Rosengart replied, “What’s next for Britney — and this is the first time this could be said for about a decade — is up to one person: Britney.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Given the glacial pace at which federal antitrust litigation moves, the U.S. Department of Justice’s historic lawsuit against Live Nation and its wholly owned subsidiary Ticketmaster is expected to take years to wind its way through the legal system whether it’s fully adjudicated or the live-event Goliath agrees to make changes to its business, which the government often terms “behavioral remedies.”
And though it’s clearly too early to predict how the case will play out, legal expert and antitrust attorney Lawrence J. White from New York University’s Stern School of Business says the potential winners and losers have already been largely pre-determined based on hints found in the 128-page complaint that the DOJ filed May 23 in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.
“The companies mentioned in the complaint as being the most harmed by anti-competitive behavior are typically the same companies that stand the most to gain in the solution,” White says.
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In the case of Live Nation, the winners will very likely be the company’s main concert promotion rival, AEG Presents; secondary-market ticketing competitor SeatGeek; and a handful of major independent promoters like Chicago’s Jam Productions. The losers would likely be Live Nation; Irving Azoff and Tim Leiweke’s venue owner, management and hospitality company, Oak View Group — which the DOJ alleges “has described itself as a ‘hammer’ and ‘protect[or]’ for Live Nation” — as well as, potentially, major artist management companies and talent agencies, depending on the government’s solution for more competitive ticket pricing.
“The government tends to rely on private companies to carry out its policy goals during the remedy phase of an antitrust case,” explains White, pointing toward the original consent decree drafted around the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. That agreement unsuccessfully propped up two private companies — AEG and Comcast Spectacor — to serve as competitors to Ticketmaster.
Whether the DOJ wins in court or ends up settling with Live Nation, White says it will lean on large corporations to assist with enforcement of the ruling. As Live Nation’s only major competitor for ticketing and concert promotion, AEG, which owns AXS Ticketing, is an obvious choice as a DOJ partner because of the company’s large scale, which will be critical for the DOJ’s long-shot goal to lower ticket prices. (The DOJ is believed to have interviewed more than 100 individuals from the live-music industry as part of its recent antitrust investigation into Live Nation.)
In a May 23 press release that announced the lawsuit filing, Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anti-competitive 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.” He contends that increasing competition among Live Nation’s ticketing rivals and in the artist promotion space will lower the face value prices of tickets.
Prior to the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, four or five ticketing companies were capable of competing with the latter at the arena level. In 2024, only two remain: AXS and SeatGeek, the secondary site that also happens to own one of the only primary ticketing products capable of servicing major arenas and stadiums.
In a statement released to Billboard, SeatGeek said, “We are hopeful that the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit to break up the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly will restore fair market competition to live entertainment.” On the concert promotion front, there are far fewer major independent promoters now than there were prior to 2010 and only a handful capable of touring major arena acts across the country. In addition to Jam Productions, they include Nashville’s Outback Concerts and Another Planet Entertainment in the San Francisco Bay Area. All three promoters declined to comment for this story.
In a May 31 letter to his staff, AEG chairman/CEO Jay Marciano outlined how the DOJ could make concert promotion fairer and drive down the cost of ticketing by dismantling Live Nation’s “flywheel” business model, which is cited in the DOJ’s complaint and described in its May 23 press release as “a self-reinforcing business model that captures fees and revenue from concert fans and sponsorship, uses that revenue to lock up artists to exclusive promotion deals and then uses its powerful cache of live content to sign venues into long-term exclusive ticketing deals, thereby starting the cycle all over again.”
Marciano’s letter said Live Nation’s flywheel model “deploys the excessive profits of its ticketing monopoly to outspend what the concert market can profitably sustain.”
Under this theory, ticket prices would drop if Live Nation was prevented from using its other revenue sources to overpay artists and compete with other promoters offering artists an 85/15 or a 90/10 split on ticket sales.
Although the theory is not widely accepted by most major talent agents or managers — IAG executive vp/head of global music Jarred Arfa calls it “unrealistic” and “illogical” — it is gaining popularity among large indie promoters and DOJ lawyers, sources tell Billboard. White notes that whether the government settles or takes Ticketmaster to trial will depend on “the time and resources the DOJ wants to expend on the case and the evidence against Live Nation it has collected.”