Tunney Act comments call for universal ticket portability, open marketplace interoperability and nondiscriminatory access to ticketing infrastructure.
TicketNetwork has submitted formal comments to the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the proposed settlement of the federal antitrust case against Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster. The comments urge stronger protections to ensure that independent ticket marketplaces can compete for the business of rights holders and consumers on fair and open terms.
The September 4, 2026 submission, filed pursuant to the Tunney Act in United States et al. v. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-03973 (S.D.N.Y.), focuses on a fundamental principle: a rights holder should be able to choose how and where its tickets are distributed, and consumers should be able to choose where they buy, transfer or lawfully resell a ticket without unnecessary technological or contractual barriers imposed by the company controlling the underlying ticketing infrastructure.
The issue goes directly to the competition concerns that brought the federal case in the first place. In May 2024, the Justice Department and 30 state and district attorneys general — a coalition that later grew to 40 — sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster, alleging that long-term exclusive ticketing contracts, retaliation and pressure against venues and competitors, and other exclusionary practices had restricted competition across the live-event industry.
The proposed settlement recognizes some of those concerns by requiring Ticketmaster to provide certain third-party primary marketplaces access to its back-end ticketing infrastructure. TicketNetwork’s comments argue that this is an important step — but that meaningful competition requires protections that extend further.
Competition Should Happen at the Marketplace Level
TicketNetwork’s core business is operating an independent ticket marketplace, and the company also provides ticketing technology and works with rights holders to distribute tickets being offered to consumers for the first time. Modern ticketing technology no longer requires the marketplace that sells a ticket to operate the underlying system that creates and validates its digital credential.
A venue, team, theater, promoter or other rights holder can choose an independent marketplace to reach consumers while continuing to rely on an incumbent ticketing system for back-end functionality. TicketNetwork argues that this kind of open distribution can create meaningful competition without requiring a rights holder to replace its entire ticketing technology stack.
But it only works if the back-end provider cannot use its control of ticket credentials, transfer technology, APIs, customer information or other infrastructure to determine which marketplaces can effectively compete.
As TicketNetwork states in its filing:
“A rights holder should be able to choose an independent marketplace for the initial distribution of inventory, and a consumer should be able to choose an independent marketplace for a later lawful transfer or resale.”
That principle should apply throughout a ticket’s life cycle — not only to a limited category of transactions or approved competitors.
Technology Should Enable Competition, Not Control It
Digital ticketing has made tickets more secure and provided valuable new functionality. It has also given the operator of the underlying credentialing system considerably more control over what happens to a ticket after it is issued.
TicketNetwork’s comments emphasize that interoperability therefore cannot mean merely allowing a competing marketplace to connect to Ticketmaster’s infrastructure in theory.
Meaningful competition requires nondiscriminatory access to the functionality necessary to complete transactions reliably — including ticket credentials, authentication, transfers, APIs, relevant data, system performance, documentation and technical support.
It also requires protecting the customer relationship. A consumer who chooses an independent marketplace should not unnecessarily be forced into the incumbent marketplace’s account or interface, and information supplied solely to fulfill or validate a ticket should not become a competitive data advantage for that incumbent marketplace — a risk the final judgment should expressly foreclose.
These concerns take on additional significance given the history of the market. The Justice Department determined that Live Nation had engaged in conduct that violated the behavioral restrictions imposed following the 2010 Ticketmaster merger, and obtained a strengthened consent decree announced in December 2019 and entered in January 2020. On April 15, 2026, the state plaintiffs that continued litigating the current case obtained a jury verdict finding, among other things, that Ticketmaster unlawfully maintained monopoly power in primary ticketing services at major concert venues. That verdict remains subject to post-trial motions.
TicketNetwork’s Proposed Competition Safeguards
TicketNetwork’s filing asks that any final remedy establish a meaningful interoperability baseline built around eight principles:
- Universal ticket portability. Valid tickets should remain capable of lawful transfer, resale or gifting regardless of the marketplace through which they were initially purchased.
- Open marketplace access for initial distribution. Qualified independent marketplaces should be able to distribute first-sale inventory without having to replace a venue’s entire ticketing back-end.
- Objective certification standards. Marketplace access should be based on legitimate requirements involving security, authenticity, fraud prevention, payment integrity, consumer protection and compliance with law.
- No unrelated cross-market conditions. Access to primary-ticketing infrastructure should not be conditioned on private restrictions governing a competitor’s separate secondary-market business. Where a legitimate restriction does apply, the ticket issuer should provide the data and technology necessary to implement it.
- Customer and data independence. Independent marketplaces should be able to maintain their own consumer relationships, with data shared with a back-end provider limited to what is actually necessary to service the ticket.
- Technical nondiscrimination. Competing marketplaces should receive materially equivalent access to credentials, APIs, system performance, relevant data, documentation and technical support.
- Commercially meaningful access. Integration terms and charges should not make third-party distribution theoretically available but economically or operationally impractical.
- Independent oversight. Effective monitoring should allow competitors to confidentially report discrimination, data misuse or efforts to circumvent the settlement’s requirements.
Building a More Open Ticketing Marketplace
These recommendations build upon the competition principles TicketNetwork submitted to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission in 2025, including ticket portability, open authentication standards, limits on long-term exclusivity and protections against the use of technology to foreclose lawful competition.
TicketNetwork supports a live-event ecosystem in which rights holders have meaningful choices for reaching fans, independent marketplaces can compete for transactions on the merits, and consumers — not technological gatekeepers — can determine which lawful marketplace they choose to use.
The proposed Live Nation-Ticketmaster settlement moves toward recognizing that model by separating the consumer-facing marketplace from the underlying ticketing back-end. TicketNetwork’s comments urge the court to ensure that this separation results in genuine competition rather than leaving the same underlying bottleneck in place.
Read the Full Filing
Media Contact
Sean Burns
Director of Communications and Government Affairs, TicketNetwork
Sean.Burns@ticketnetwork.com