00:00The Justice Department said it's tentatively settled its antitrust suit against Ticketmaster.
00:05Yes, this case has been dragging along for what feels like forever, and ticket buying has, well,
00:10sucked. But if you think you'll be able to snap your fingers and scoop up cheap tickets to Taylor
00:15Swift's next tour, you need to calm down. The main argument of the case is that Live Nation,
00:19Ticketmaster's parent company, has a monopoly on the whole live events industry because they not
00:24only own so many venues, but they also control the ticketing prices for events at their spots
00:29and many other venues. That, the argument goes, has been bad for us, you, me, consumers. If you've
00:36even looked at purchasing event tickets the last few years, you kind of get what they're saying.
00:41Now, the full details of the deal weren't clear as of Monday night, but here's what we do know.
00:45Live Nation will pony up the dough to pay a fine of 280 million bucks and sell off at least
00:5113
00:52concert venues around the country. It also agreed to open up its ticketing process so competitors
00:57can share in the sale of tickets. I don't really know how any of us actually win in this deal.
01:02It's all a bit confusing, but perhaps it's the reactions of state attorneys general that are the
01:08most revealing part of this whole thing. 26 states, including New York, California, Michigan, Kansas,
01:14Tennessee, and North Carolina, are all thumbing their noses at the deal because they think it fails
01:19to address the whole monopoly issue, the reason we're here. In other words, it doesn't benefit the
01:24public. You, me, consumers. Now, the states plan to continue arguing the case against Live Nation
01:30in court because they believe they have a winning case.
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