Photo Credit: 萧羽 李
The Federal Trade Commission has demanded a full jury trial against Live Nation in its BOTS Act lawsuit against the ticketing and live events giant.
After the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) successfully maintained its case against Live Nation despite the live events giant’s attempts to dismiss it, both parties have since entered into disputes over discovery and scheduling. The FTC is now intensifying its efforts, insisting that the case regarding Live Nation’s purported breaches of the BOTS Act proceed to a full jury trial.
As Digital Music News has covered extensively, this case is notably separate from the Department of Justice and state attorneys general’s antitrust litigation in New York. The FTC filed its case in the Central District of California against Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster and is joined in its efforts by the attorneys general of the states of Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia.
The initial 84-page complaint accused Ticketmaster’s platform of three primary and related offenses: deceptive price listings, misleading ticket purchase limits, and unlawful resales. The FTC alleged that the company was financially incentivized by repeated fee collection—on the original purchase, on charges to the reseller, and finally to the resale purchaser.
The complaint alleged $3.7 billion in resale ticket fees between 2019 and 2024. The FTC and the other plaintiffs have sought permanent injunctive relief, civil penalities, monetary relief, and other remedies under applicable federal and state laws.
Live Nation has asserted that the BOTS Act was designed to address botting on the resale market and that it could not be used to litigate against a primary ticketing platform. The company filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, but a federal judge denied it last month.
In response, Live Nation and Ticketmaster denied the allegations and characterized the lawsuit as “misguided,” insisting that the FTC is improperly using a law intended to combat scalpers to punish ticketing platforms for failing to prevent every instance of purchasing abuse.
The companies added that they had invested more than $1 billion in anti-scalping measures since their highly controversial merger in 2010. While that may be true, it does not address the core issues raised by the FTC. The court ruled that the plaintiffs had submitted enough evidence to warrant further investigation.
Whether that will lead to a full jury trial as the FTC has requested, and when that trial might actually take place, remains to be seen. Much of that will depend on discovery findings and will be determined once that phase has come to a close.