UMAW’s Letter On the Live Nation / Ticketmaster Antitrust Verdict
UNITED MUSICIANS AND ALLIED WORKERS
September 4, 2026
To the Honorable Attorneys General of the Plaintiff States and the District of Columbia
Re: Remedies Following the Live Nation/Ticketmaster Antitrust Verdict
Dear Attorneys General:
United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) is a national advocacy organization of musicians and other music industry professionals dedicated to building a more just music industry. Since forming in 2020, we have mobilized over 100,000 music workers across the country to take action to demand better wages and treatment across the industry. We first endorsed the call to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster in 2022, and we are the primary group organizing music workers to support the antitrust effort.
We applaud your coalition of states’ decision to continue the case against Live Nation-Ticketmaster after the DOJ reached its insufficient settlement, and we widely celebrated the jury’s decision finding Live Nation and Ticketmaster liable for operating an illegal monopoly.
We urge you to create remedies, such as those we outline below, that address the enormous negative impact Live Nation’s monopoly has had on tens of thousands of musicians across the United States. Much of the public discussion around remedies has rightfully noted the need to address the harm Live Nation-Ticketmaster has done to music consumers and independent venues and promoters, but any remedies must also serve those whose labor the entire music industry is built on: musicians.
The ways that Live Nation’s monopolistic practices have hurt artists include: 1) driving out competition among venues and promoters, thus reducing artists’ negotiating power and thus driving down wages and standards for working conditions; 2) buying up or shutting down independent venues, thus gutting the local independent music scenes that new and emerging artists rely on to make a living and build their careers; 3) forcing fans to pay exorbitant ticketing fees, thus reducing the total amount of money fans have available to spend on artists; 4) forcing artists to work within the Live Nation artist management system as a prerequisite for touring Live Nation venues, thus forcing artists to work with managers who have a clear conflict of interest when negotiating with Live Nation venues; 5) establishing and enforcing live event practices that further rob artists of income, such as merch cuts.
As such, on behalf of UMAW’s thousands of members and tens of thousands of affiliated activists, we recommend the following remedies:
1. Live Nation must be separated from Ticketmaster.
Echoing the core request from stakeholders across the music industry, Live Nation must be separated from Ticketmaster. Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an illegal monopoly and breaking it up must be the minimum of any remedy.
2. Damages paid to the states should be used in part to create a grant fund paid out directly to local musicians.
Damages from the settlement paid to the states should be, in part, paid out to local musicians in the form of a grant fund. While wealthy artists like Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen have made headlines for their clashes with Live Nation, the musicians most hurt by Live Nation’s monopolistic, illegal behavior have been artists who are young, independent, emerging, or performing in less lucrative genres. These lower-income artists are the musicians most affected by Live Nation destroying local music ecosystems. States should use the damages funds to send money directly to these musicians—whether through existing state arts councils or by creating a new body—and ensure that the funds are broadly dispersed across geographical regions and genres of music.
UMAW agrees that damages should also be paid to ticket buyers and independent venues and promoters, but artists must be included at the center of these plans.
3. Force Live Nation to break from its artist management company, and stop Live Nation from acquiring or creating any other artist services companies.
Live Nation owns and operates its own artist management company. That means the same corporation that owns the tour venues is also managing the artist, booking the tour, and selling the tickets. This level of vertical integration means artists within Live Nation’s management system have little room to negotiate better terms or to seek management elsewhere. Further, Live Nation artist managers have a clear conflict of interest when negotiating deals with Live Nation venues and promoters, and are more likely to advocate for the corporation’s best interests rather than their artists’.
4. Block Live Nation from forcing its entire venue network to adopt anti-artist live event policies such as merch cuts.
Live Nation often enacts live event policies that it forces every venue in its vast network to adopt during every show. For instance, Live Nation forced all its venues to take merch cuts (whereby the venue demands that artists pay the venue a percentage of all artist merchandise sold on the night of the show, often going as high as 20% or even 30%) and would not allow individual venues to negotiate that policy with artists or their agents. In this way, Live Nation used its monopoly power to drive down artist pay and standards for working conditions. Live Nation briefly paused taking merch cuts in 2023 after public backlash, but has since resumed them.
Artists should not be forced to adopt unfair, unethical contract terms because Live Nation is the only game in town. The corporation must be forced to give its individual venues greater autonomy so that artists can freely negotiate all contract terms on a venue-by-venue basis.
5. Limit Live Nation’s ownership of multiple venues in a single market, and prevent Live Nation from buying or constructing new venues.
In many markets, Live Nation owns venues at every level capacity, from the smallest a regional touring band might play, to the very largest booked by international stars. This kind of vertical monopoly creates an unfair business environment for musicians who have no leverage to negotiate wages or terms in the face of such market domination. Artists are restricted in their ability to negotiate fees and terms with venues; music workers are restricted in their ability to negotiate labor rates; and independent venues find themselves unable to survive against such outsize competition.
There must be a limit placed on the number of venues Live Nation can own or control in a single market.
6. Prohibit Live Nation from implementing radius clauses for festivals in regions where they also own and operate venues, and/or prohibit Live Nation from owning and operating both festivals and venues in the same market.
In addition to vertical monopolies of multiple venues in a single market, Live Nation also operates music festivals in those same regions. These festivals often demand “radius clauses” in contracts with performers, restricting artists’ performances in area venues without Live Nation’s approval and participation. This limits artists’ ability to negotiate fairly for services in the region, and limits the ability of local independent venues to bid for those artists’ services.
In sum, the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly has done enormous harm to musicians for many years, and thus any remedies must center musicians. Thank you for your tireless work on this case, and for your consideration of our recommendations.
Sincerely,
United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW)