Taylor Swift the Trust Buster

Taylor Swift’s blockbuster Eras Tour united music fans, and now her fury towards Ticketmaster has resulted in an antitrust lawsuit against the ticketing giant that seems to have united people across the ideological spectrum. The U.S. Department of Justice and state and district attorneys general today filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation Entertainment for operating a monopoly that they said muscles out competitors, hurts artists and forces fans to pay exorbitant fees. The lawsuit created a rare kumbaya moment in a heavily divided U.S., as Democratic and Republican senators, Red and Blue state attorneys general and libertarian and progressive think-tankers locked metaphorical arms. If Drake and Kendrick Lamar settle their beef and endorse the lawsuit, then we’ll know for sure that world peace is possible.

Live Nation, for its part, said the DOJ will lose its lawsuit because the bulk of the service fees it charges go to venues and "competition has steadily eroded Ticketmaster’s market share and profit margin."

A lot of the anticompetitive conduct that the DOJ and crew accuse Ticketmaster of in their lawsuit has been known for decades, going back to the 1990s when the band Pearl Jam went on a crusade against the company’s ticketing monopoly. But that effort went nowhere. In fact, the Obama Administration’s DOJ allowed the company to get even more powerful in 2010 by approving its merger with Live Nation.