In order to encourage fair competition, the antitrust legislation and policies aim to ban trusts and institutions engaging in unlawful monopolies, restrictive trading practices or illegal restrictions. Unfair activities may be committed by some institutions, which can lead to unfair monopolies and threaten the viability or other businesses. Ticketmaster, Live Nation and others created an unjustified monopoly which prevented Songkick from selling tickets (Brooks 2018, 2018). Antitrust laws protect competition and prevent one company dominating the market. Instead, they encourage cooperation with other companies to establish a cartel. First Nation and Ticketmaster pressed musicians and performers to stop working with Songkick by threatening them with penalties. Unfair competition resulted, which hampered Songkick’s ability to raise its corporate profile. Songkick’s encouragement of concert venues and musicians to avoid collaboration with it led to an unfair monopoly that placed restrictions on them both. Ticket Master paid $110 million in settlement to Songkick.
The U.S. Congress passed several regulations to encourage ethical behavior. Agreements that limit free trade are criminalized by the Sharman Act. This legislation bans institutions from controlling services. In this case, the Sharman Act was broken by Ticketmaster and First Nation. They collaborated with artists and concert venues to bypass Songkick. Participation in market segmentation or bid rigging is discouraged by the Sharman Act. First Nation and Ticketmaster conspired in order to split marketing for an unfair advantage. Also in violation of the Free Trade Commission Conduct, which prohibits misleading and unfair practices, was the act (Rao & Wang, 2017). Songkick’s plot to incentivize artists and venues to not trade with it encouraged unfair business practices by misrepresentation. Anti-competitive behavior is prohibited by the FTC Act.