TicketNetwork Targets Resale Conditions in DOJ’s Live Nation-Ticketmaster Settlement

TicketNetwork is urging a federal court to strengthen the Justice Department’s proposed Live Nation-Ticketmaster antitrust settlement, targeting provisions that could make a rival’s access to new primary-ticketing opportunities depend partly on how it operates its separate resale business.

In Tunney Act comments submitted Sept. 4, TicketNetwork argues that the settlement takes an important step by recognizing that Ticketmaster’s consumer-facing marketplace can be separated from the back-end technology that creates, manages and validates tickets. But the company says the proposed rules could still leave Ticketmaster controlling which competitors can use that infrastructure and under what conditions.

That concern is particularly clear in the settlement’s definition of an “Eligible Primary Ticketing Services Provider.”

Under the proposed final judgment, an established primary marketplace that also operates a secondary-ticketing business can remain eligible for Ticketmaster’s new open-distribution system only if it meets several requirements governing resale. Those include prohibiting speculative ticket sales, identifying sellers and following certain artist, team or other content-owner requests involving face-value resale limits, other pricing restrictions, geofencing or additional secondary-sale conditions.

The language appears directly in the proposed judgment filed by DOJ in June.

TicketNetwork argues that requirements involving fraud prevention, authentication, payment security and other technical safeguards are appropriately tied to access to sensitive ticketing infrastructure. Private restrictions on what price a ticket can later be resold for, or where a lawful resale can occur, are different, the company says.

“Access to primary-distribution infrastructure should not depend on enforcing private resale price, geographic, or other economic restrictions unrelated to security, fraud prevention, or applicable law,” TicketNetwork wrote in its filing.

The objection is notable because the settlement is designed in part to increase competition in primary ticketing. TicketNetwork argues that DOJ’s proposed structure could instead use access to those new primary-market opportunities as leverage over how a competitor operates in an entirely different part of its business.

If Resale Rules Remain, TicketNetwork Wants the Data to Enforce Them

TicketNetwork goes a step beyond simply asking the court to eliminate those resale conditions.

If independent marketplaces are expected to enforce an artist or rights holder’s resale restrictions, the company argues that the ticket issuer or back-end provider should be required to give them the information and technical tools necessary to do so.

That could include the original face value, transfer eligibility, identity requirements, geographic restrictions and other event-specific information controlled by the primary ticketing system.

TicketNetwork wants that information supplied on timely, standardized, machine-readable and nondiscriminatory terms. A competing marketplace should not lose access to Ticketmaster’s infrastructure because it failed to implement a restriction when the incumbent did not provide the information or functionality needed to enforce it, the company argues.

That distinction addresses a practical problem increasingly visible in ticket resale regulation: independent marketplaces do not automatically possess the transaction information maintained by the original ticket issuer.

TicketNews recently reported on a related issue in Ontario, where SeatGeek and StubHub have both been fined in part for facilitating a resale without receiving proof of the ticket’s original purchase price. Both argue that sellers and independent marketplaces do not always have access to the information needed to satisfy those requirements, particularly when the primary transaction took place on another platform.

The legal regimes are different, but the underlying information problem resembles the one TicketNetwork is asking the federal court to address: a marketplace can be required to enforce a rule based on data controlled by another company.

TicketNetwork is not the first Ticketmaster competitor to object to the settlement’s resale eligibility conditions.

SeatGeek previously told the court that tying access to Ticketmaster’s open-distribution system to compliance with rights-holder resale restrictions could become a “backdoor mechanism” for imposing secondary-market policies through a settlement of primary-ticketing antitrust claims.

TicketNetwork’s filing adds a more detailed implementation argument: If those conditions survive, the incumbent controlling the credential should also bear an affirmative obligation to make compliance realistically possible.

TicketNetwork Wants Portability to Follow the Ticket

The company’s broader argument centers on what happens when Ticketmaster remains the technological back end even though another marketplace wins the consumer transaction.

TicketNetwork primarily operates in resale, but it also provides ticketing technology and works with rights holders to distribute inventory being offered to consumers for the first time. In those arrangements, TicketNetwork can serve as the consumer-facing marketplace even when another company’s system ultimately generates or validates the digital ticket credential.

The proposed judgment would require Ticketmaster to provide qualifying third-party primary marketplaces access to portions of its back-end infrastructure. Ticketmaster could continue managing inventory, credentials and ticket validation while another marketplace handles the customer-facing sale. DOJ describes that arrangement as a way for competing marketplaces to gain primary inventory without replacing a venue’s entire ticketing system.

TicketNetwork says those protections should extend further.

It wants every valid ticket managed through Ticketmaster’s back end to remain capable of lawful transfer, resale or gifting regardless of where the ticket was originally purchased.

That would cover, for example, a ticket initially bought directly from Ticketmaster and later listed by its owner through an independent resale marketplace.

TicketNetwork argues that the settlement’s existing interoperability and data provisions are more limited, with key protections tied to tickets sold through qualifying third-party primary marketplaces. The company wants neutral credential access to apply throughout the ticket’s entire life cycle.

The same principle would apply to technology.

TicketNetwork warns that simply requiring Ticketmaster to make an API available would not necessarily guarantee equal access. A competing marketplace could still be disadvantaged through differences in latency, rate limits, uptime, credential-release timing, transfer availability, documentation, technical support or access to new features.

The company is therefore asking for “technical nondiscrimination,” requiring independent marketplaces to receive materially equivalent access to credentials, authentication systems, relevant data, APIs and support as Ticketmaster’s own consumer marketplace.

It also wants customer information supplied to Ticketmaster’s back end limited to what is necessary to issue, transfer or validate the ticket rather than being used for marketing or other competitive purposes.

No Specific Breakup Demand

TicketNetwork’s proposed solution differs in one important respect from several other Tunney Act comments filed over the settlement.

The National Independent Venue Association has explicitly urged the court to require a separation of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, while the state attorneys general continuing to litigate the case are separately pursuing structural relief following their April jury victory.

TicketNetwork stops short of endorsing a particular divestiture proposal.

Instead, it argues that interoperability, data separation and nondiscriminatory infrastructure access should be minimum requirements if Live Nation and Ticketmaster remain vertically integrated. If those behavioral protections cannot prevent the incumbent from using its control over ticketing technology to disadvantage competitors, TicketNetwork says stronger structural alternatives warrant consideration.

The company also points to the history of the earlier Live Nation-Ticketmaster consent decree. DOJ concluded in 2019 that Live Nation had repeatedly engaged in conduct that violated the restrictions imposed after the companies’ 2010 merger, leading to a strengthened and extended decree.

The current settlement contains more extensive monitoring and enforcement provisions, but TicketNetwork argues that continued control over ticket credentials and infrastructure creates competitive risks that cannot be addressed merely by formally allowing rivals to connect.

TicketNews reached a similar concern when reviewing the settlement language in June: Ticketmaster would remain embedded in the technological center of the system even when rival marketplaces gained access to some primary inventory.

TicketNetwork is asking the court not to find the proposed judgment in the public interest in its current form without stronger protections for ticket portability, marketplace interoperability, customer and data independence, objective access standards and technological nondiscrimination.

The court must ultimately determine under the Tunney Act whether DOJ’s proposed judgment serves the public interest after the government considers and responds to the comments submitted during the review process.

TicketNetwork’s Tunney Act Submission (PDF)