DOJ to Sue Live Nation/Ticketmaster

Legal

The New York Times:

The Justice Department and a group of states plan to sue Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, as soon as Thursday, accusing it of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry, said three people familiar with the matter.

The government plans to argue in a lawsuit that Live Nation shored up its power through Ticketmaster’s exclusive ticketing contracts with concert venues, as well as the company’s dominance over concert tours and other businesses like venue management, said two of the people, who declined to be named because the lawsuit was still private. That helped the company maintain a monopoly, raising prices and fees for consumers, limiting innovation in the ticket industry and hurting competition, the people said.

Review: Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft

Billie Eilish has had quite the run of fortune recently. Having picked up major accolades, including her second Oscar for Best Original Song for her contribution to the Barbie movie for the heart-wrenching “What Was I Made For?”, to multiple Grammy awards for her continued collaboration with her brother, Finneas, Eilish seemed poised to deliver an album that felt like the truest form of her identity. Hit Me Hard And Soft is an album that feels like the more logical successor of Eilish’s breakthrough, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and she shines all over the record. While the “knock” on Billie Eilish has been that she “doesn’t sing, she whispers,” that all gets put to bed once in for all on this third studio album that has some of the best vocal moments in the young artist’s career to date. Having chosen to not release any singles prior to the album launch, Billie Eilish was daring her fans to embrace the album format and listen to it, traditionally, from front to back. She accomplishes that goal in more ways than one, by creating her most cohesive and daring work of art to date on Hit Me Hard And Soft.

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