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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months

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Live Nation/Ticketmaster is buying Congress

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THURSDAY (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. Monopolies are intrinsically destabilizing and inevitably implode…eventually. Guessing which of the loathesome monopolies that make us all miserable will be the first domino is a hard call, but Ticketmaster is definitely high on my list.

It's not that event tickets are the most consequential aspect of our lives. The monopolies over pharma, fuel, finance, tech, and even beer are all more important to our day-to-day. But while Ticketmaster – and its many ramified tentacles, like Live Nation – may not be the most destructive monopoly in our world, but it pisses off people with giant megaphones and armies of rabid fans.

It's been a minute since Ticketmaster was last in the news, so let's recap. Ticketmaster bought out most of its ticketing rivals, then merged with Live Nation, the country's largest concert promoter, and bought out many of the country's largest music, stage and sports venues. They used this iron grip on the entire supply chain for performances and events to pile innumerable junk fees on every ticket sold, while drastically eroding the wages of the creative workers they nominally represented. They created a secret secondary market for tickets and worked with ticket-touts to help them run bots that bought every ticket within an instant of the opening of ticket sales, then ran an auction marketplace that made them gigantic fees on every re-sold ticket – fees the performers were not entitled to share in.

The Ticketmaster/Live Nation/venue octopus is nearly impossible to escape. Independent venues can't book Live Nation acts unless they use Ticketmaster for their tickets. Acts can't get into the large venues owned by Ticketmaster unless they sign up to have Live Nation book their tour. And when Ticketmaster buys a venue, it creams off the most successful acts, starving competing venues of blockbuster shows. They also illegally colluded with their vendors to jack up the price of concerts across the board:

https://pascrell.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ful.pdf

When Rebecca Giblin and I were writing Chokepoint Capitalism, our book about how tech and entertainment monopolies impoverish all kinds of creative workers, we were able to get insiders to go on record about every kind of monopoly, from the labels to Spotify, Kindle to the Big Five publishers and the Google-Meta ad-tech duopoly. The only exception was Ticketmaster/Live Nation: everyone involved in live performance – performers, bookers, club owners – was palpably terrified about speaking out on the record about the conglomerate:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

No wonder. The company has a long and notorious history of using its market power to ruin anyone who challenges it. Remember Pearl Jam?

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/

But anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. Not only is Ticketmaster a rapacious, vindictive monopolist – it's also an incompetent monopolist, whose IT systems are optimized for rent-extraction first, with ticket sales as a distant afterthought. This is bad no matter which artist it effects, but when Ticketmaster totally, utterly fucked up Taylor Swift's first post-lockdown tour, they incurred the wrath of the Swifties:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2022/11/21/23471763/taylor-swift-ticketmaster-monopoly

All of which explains why I've always given good odds that Ticketmaster would be first up against the wall come the antitrust revolution. It may not be the most destructive monopolist, but it is absurdly evil, and the people who hate it most are the most famous and beloved artists in the country.

For a while, it looked like I was right. Ticketmaster's colossal Taylor Swift fuckup prompted Senator Amy Klobuchar – a leading antitrust crusader – to hold hearings on the company's conduct, and led to the introduction of a raft of bills to rein in predatory ticketing practices. But as David Dayen writes for The American Prospect, Ticketmaster/Live Nation is spreading a fortune around on the Hill, hiring a deep bench of ex-Congressmen and ex-senior staffers (including Klobuchar's former chief of staff) and they've found a way to create the appearance of justice without having to suffer any consequences for their decades-long campaign of fraud and abuse:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-04-30-live-nation-strikes-up-band-washington/

Dayen opens his article with the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which is always bracketed by a week's worth of lavish parties for Congress and hill staffers. One of the fanciest of these parties was thrown by Axios – and sponsored by Live Nation, with a performance by Jelly Roll (whose touring contract is owned by Live Nation). Attendees at the Axios/Live Nation event were bombarded with messages about the essential goodness of Live Nation (they were even printed on the cocktail napkins) and exhortations to support the Fans First Act, co-sponsored by Klobuchar and Sen John Cornyn (R-TX):

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/arts/music/fans-first-act-ticket-bill.html

Ticketmaster/Live Nation loves the Fans First Act, because – unlike other bills – it focuses primarily on the secondary market for tickets, and its main measure is a requirement for ticketing companies to disclose their junk fees upfront. Neither of these represents a major challenge to Ticketmaster/Live Nation's control over the market, which gives it the ability to slash performers' wages while jacking up prices for fans.

Fans First represents the triumph of Ticketmaster/Live Nation's media strategy, which is to blame the entire problem on bottom-feeding ticket-touts (who are mostly scum!) instead of on the single monopoly that controls the entire industry and can't stop committing financial crimes.

Axios isn't Live Nation's only partner in selling this distraction tactic. Over the past five years, the company has flushed gigantic sums of money through Washington. Its lobbying spend rose from $240k in 2018 to $1.1m in 2022, and $2.38m in 2023:

https://thehill.com/business/4431886-live-nation-doubled-lobbying-spending-to-2-4m-in-2023-amid-antitrust-threat/

The company has 37 paid lobbyists selling Congress on its behalf. 25 of them are former congressional staffers. Two are former Congressmen: Ed Whitfield (R-KY), a 21 year veteran of the House, and Mark Pryor (D-AR), a two-term senator:

https://www.bhfs.com/people/attorneys/p-s/mark-pryor

But perhaps the most galling celebrant in this lavish hymn to Citizen United is Jonathan Becker, Amy Klobuchar's former chief of staff, who jumped ship to lobby Congress on behalf of monopolists like Live Nation, who paid him $120k last year to sell their story to the Hill:

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/lobbyists?cycle=2023&id=D000053134

Not everyone hates Fans First: it's been endorsed by the Nix the Tix coalition, largely on the strength of its regulation of secondary ticket sales. But the largest secondary seller in America by far is Live Nation itself, with a $4.5b market in reselling the tickets it sold in the first place. Fans First shifts focus from this sleazy self-dealing to competitors like Stubhub.

Fans First can be seen as an opening salvo in the long war against Ticketmaster/Live Nation. But compared to more muscular bills – like Klobuchar's stalled-out Unlock Ticketing Markets Act, it's pretty weaksauce. The Unlocking act will "prevent exclusive contracts between ticketing services and venues" – hitting Ticketmaster/Live Nation where it hurts, right in the bank-account:

https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/4/following-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing-klobuchar-blumenthal-introduce-legislation-to-increase-competition-in-live-event-ticketing-markets

It's not all gloom. Dayen reports that Ticketmaster's active lobbying in favor of Fans First has made many in Congress more skeptical of the bill, not less. And Congress isn't the only – or even the best – way to smash Ticketmaster's criminal empire. That's something the DoJ's antitrust division could power through with a lot less exposure to the legalized bribery that dominates Congress.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/30/nix-fix-the-tix/#something-must-be-done-there-we-did-something

Image: Matt Biddulph (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mbiddulph/13904063945/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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sporadicarbiterearthquake-blog · 4 months

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THE STORY THAT COLORADO MEDIA REFUSES TO REPORT:

COLORADO LINKS TO 9/11 PAST AND PRESENT

R. Roy Blake and Michael Jurgens

Perhaps one of the most shocking, cynical, dangerous and cowardly cover-ups in the history of American journalism is the Colorado and especially Denver’s media refusal to investigate and report on the extensive involvement of Colorado based actors in 9/11. While none of the 9/11 hijackers are known to have traveled to Colorado, pre-9/11 communications between bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives in the US and several Colorado based actors were key to 9/11 including one that the FBI considered at “the heart of the 9/11 story.” Shockingly, while downplaying or ignoring altogether the Colorado connection to 9/11, the media has become a shill for the Denver organization whose members likely played a major role in the event.

After 14 years of pressure, the Obama Administration finally declassified a heavily redacted version of the 28 missing pages of the 9/11 report. The redacted version did not mention names such as Anwar al-Awlaki, that had been mentioned as being in the 28 pages by a 60 Minutes report on the subject. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, the son of New Mexico State University professor who had been born in Yemen. Awlaki attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where he was President of the Muslim Student Association. He later served as Imam (Islamic minister) at the Denver Islamic Society on Birch Street just south of Evans Avenue in Denver.

In the months prior to 9/11 Awlaki left Denver and became the spiritual advisor to two of the 9/11 hijackers that had summered in San Diego and met with three others who were in Fall Church, Virginia and attended the notorious Saudi financed mosque there. It was also reported that Awlaki was in constant contact with the Saudi embassy in the months immediately prior to 9/11. An FBI agent had said that he felt that Awlaki was “at the heart of the 9/11 story.”

When in 2002, al Awlaki attempted to flee the US to avoid answering more questions about 9/11 he was briefly detained at JFK airport in New York, accused of passport fraud before being released to a Saudi government representative. Awlaki then fled to the UK and two years thereafter to Yemen.

While in Yemen, Awlaki joined up with Al Qaeda’s franchise there, known as Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). During Awlaki’s association with AQAP the went on to conduct terrorist attacks throughout the Arabian peninsula that killed Americans, Belgians, Spaniards, South Koreans and hundreds of Saudis and Yemenis. AQAP also trained the underwear bomber and plotted attacks on Jewish community centers in the US using mail bombs loaded into printer cartridges, plotted using smuggled explosive liquids onto US bound airlines. Awlaki was also the spiritual inspiration for the Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas that killed 12 and wounded 31.

Others had reported that among the missing names was Homaidan al Turki, a member of the Saudi royal family who had relocated to Denver, Colorado. Al Turki is currently serving a life sentence in Federal prison for holding an underage Indonesian girl that he had purchased in Saudi Arabia as a slave in his Aurora, Colorado basement. Al Turki also founded a company called “Al Bashir Publications and Translations” that featured the speeches and sermons of Anwar al Awlaki urging Muslims to violence against non-Muslims and especially the US and the West. It is difficult to overestimate the effect of Awlaki’s speeches and sermons had, and even after his death, continues to have in terms of inspiring terrorism.

Even in view of the fact that a significant amount of the 28 pages remained classified, some witting or unwitting Saudi apologists claimed that the redacted portion of the 28 pages “contained no smoking gun” and argued that the matter ought be put to rest. Senator Graham, however, said it did in fact did confirm Saudi government links to the hijackers and that the redacted portions of the 28 pages ought to be released along with the over 80,000 pages from 9/11 investigations.

The FBI also learned that the two Saudis traveled to Washington to attend a symposium hosted by the Saudi Embassy in collaboration with the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, which was chaired by the Saudi ambassador. Before being shut down for terrorist ties, IIASA employed the late al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki as a lecturer. Awlaki ministered to some of the hijackers and helped them obtain housing and IDs.

In 1994, well prior to 9/11 and just following the first attack large attack on the World Trade Center, the London based “Advice and Reformation Committee” (ARC), widely considered Osama bin Laden’s publicity office, established a “secure system for communications between Saudi Arabia and London for Osama bin Laden. Incredibly, the system reportedly made use of US Army lines! In the US the system was centered in Denver, Colorado and initially set up by Denver resident Lujain al-Imam, wife of London based Islamic “activist” Mohammad al Massari. The calls are routed from Saudi Arabia to Britain through Denver using “toll free lines established for US servicemen during the Gulf War.”

In addition to al Turki and al Awlaki, other Denver residents suspected of involvement with al Qaeda prior to 9/11 include Khalid al Fawwaz who will later be indicted for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa. Another is Ziyad Khaleel, vice president of the Denver Islamic Society until 1994. Together with al Fawwaz, Khaleel is suspected of purchasing a satellite phone for bin Laden.

No doubt the one of the reasons that the Denver and Colorado media have ignored the Colorado 9/11 connection has to do with behind the scenes Saudi Arabian money, such as checks written to Denver super law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck. On its website the Brownstein firm touts its “…deep experience…and political connections” which include hosting major Colorado Republican events. What the website does not disclose is the fact that the Saudi Arabian government pays the firm to fight off the lawsuits of 9/11 victim families and to otherwise lobby on behalf of the Saudis.

The Denver Post did a few articles on Anwar al Awlaki that were characterized as would be “puff pieces” by talkshow host Rev. Bob Enyart. One, written before a drone strike in Yemen killed, the man whom after bin Laden was the world’s most wanted terrorist, contended that Awlaki made little impression in Denver despite the fact that the speeches he gave while in Denver inspired and continue to inspire terrorism to this day.

The Post article made much of the fact that a Denver Islamic Society elder who wished to remain anonymous stated that he had opposed Awlaki’s recruitment of a young Muslim to fight in Chechnya where he was killed. A careful reading of the article, however, revealed that the reason for the opposition to the young man’s recruitment wasn’t a rejection of jihadi warfare. It was the fact that due to the age of the young man, he should not go off to jihad without his parent’s consent.

The fact that the elder at the Denver Islamic Society did not feel safe enough to reveal his identity speaks volumes about the fact that the influence of Awlaki, al –Turki and the others continue to have on the Denver Islamic Society. Perhaps the worst part of all of this is that the refusal of the Colorado media to report this allows for influence and infiltration that endangers us all. The current president of the Denver Islamic Society, Mohammed Malki, has held, and probably continues to hold a sensitive position as an “information security officer,” in the Colorado state government.

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