Future of Music Coalition

04/16/2026

Today’s verdict is a massive victory for everyone who loves live music. It’s not just about access and affordability; it’s about our right to cultural infrastructure that’s capable of sustaining diverse musical traditions at the local and national scale. It’s about treating the relationship between fans and artists as precious and sacred, not as an opportunity for creeps to price gouge on VIP parking passes and lawn chairs, or drive fans to a secondary market which embodies the worst traits of extractive platform capitalism.

For musicians who’ve been suffering under this monopoly for so long, this outcome is especially validating. No one cares about treating fans well more than musicians, and the plaintiffs presented artists’ concerns in a way that showed how artists and fans interests are aligned in healthy music ecosystems. It’s encouraging to see a jury agree that it’s time to stand up to the bullies.

It’s our hope that this offers a path forward for the growing antimonopoly movement: centering the analysis of workers and small business is the best pathway for enforcers to understanding the facts on the ground and to winning in the courts. And whatever remedies the Judge ultimately imposes, we need lawmakers to heed this advice as well, as we keep fighting for clear rules of the road that apply to every company, federally and in the states. It’s time as well to recognize Live Nation’s pattern of duplicity in business and public policy, claiming in public to be aligned with fans and artists while privately complaining about artists who try to enact fair policies.

Now it’s time for the fun part: Live Nation/Ticketmaster must be broken up. We need structural separation between the company’s ticketing, concert promotion, artist management and venue operation lines of business. We can’t afford to waste any more time on weak behavioral remedies that require artists, venues, and promoters to monitor for signs of anticompetitive behavior. We need to strike at the root of the problem.

07/16/2025

This is it. Our last shot to protect public media.

Cuts are on the table—and your voice could make the difference.

📞 Tell your Senators to reject cuts.

Click the link in our bio to act now.

06/25/2025

12/20/2024

The Department of Justice complaint against Live Nation " is a relatively straightforward account based on established antitrust principles...You don’t have to be on the vanguard of new anti-monopoly thinking to see that the case is solid on the merits, and if it’s competently presented in a jury trial, it should be an easy and popular win.”

In an era when seemingly every issue is hyper-partisan, opposition to the concert-industry behemoth is one thing we can all agree on.

12/20/2024

"for Congress to fail to allow a single artist to testify on this legislation and then shove it through via this must-pass bill is the kind of thing that makes people cynical about politics. It’s the kind of thing that erodes public trust in these institutions.”

Several music policy groups have voiced concern that a bill in Congress' continuing resolution will hurt consumers looking to buy concert tickets.

06/12/2023

New documentary on Ticketmaster and the resale racket does a pretty solid job of laying out what's at stake. Good to see musician voices included!

Inside the hustle of a group of shadowy ticket brokers to buy up the best seats in the house and sell them at a huge profit – and how a ticketing monopoly enables them.

05/30/2023

The National Association of Broadcasters purports to speak for the interests of "local broadcasters", yet they continue to support deregulation that allows big station groups to gobble up truly local broadcasters, and oppose LPFM stations' attempts to boost their wattage and serve more listeners.

Corporate media behemoths are thwarting community stations’ efforts to compete while systematically gobbling them up and stripping them for parts.

03/23/2023

As we told Rolling Stone, “It shouldn’t be artists’ jobs to figure out how to solve every problem, and it shouldn’t be fans’ jobs to understand how to reform everything that’s broken in the industry; these are jobs for policymakers, and a huge part of the problem is that before now, policymakers haven’t done a nearly good enough job of centering the experiences of artists in these debates.”

The Cure’s on-sale this week showed the holistic problems the fractured ticketing business faces, from fees on the primary market to scalping on the secondary side

03/22/2023

Sometimes not all the tickets for live concerts go on sale at the same time--and that can be a good thing for artists, venues, promoters, and fans. Here's why:

Artists, venues, and promoters may elect to withhold some tickets from the general onsale. There are many reasons why.

03/07/2023

What can we do to make ticketing less of a nightmare? Turns out: a whole lot. We spoke to Pitchfork about some of the best ideas.

Scoring tickets for your favorite artist’s tour seems tougher than ever, but there are practical steps the industry could take to make things better.

02/28/2023

We're longtime supporters of community broadcasters, and it's been heartening to see their steadfast support of the American Music Fairness Act which would ensure that musicians get paid when they're played on AM/FM radio .

Big corporate radio lobbyists have consistently claimed that paying musicians will put small stations out of business. But these are the same lobbyists who fought against the Local Community Radio Act, which is what allowed many small stations to take to the airwaves in the first place!

We're so proud to National Federation of Community Broadcasters, Alliance for Community Media, Prometheus Radio Project, Media Alliance, Common Frequency, and REC Networks! networks

Broad Coalition Calls on Congress to Finally Pass Legislation to Pay Artists for AM/FM Radio Plays and Create Certainty for Local Broadcasters