Live Nation Entertainment, the owner of Ticketmaster, is now facing an antitrust investigation recently opened by the Justice Department, according to The Washington Post. The probe, which reportedly predates the Taylor Swift ticket debacle, will center around whether the company has demonstrated an abuse of power over the live music industry. As part of the federal probe, staff members from the DOJ have reportedly reached out to music venues and players in the live music industry ticket market to ask questions about Live Nation and whether it has a monopoly in that industry. Earlier this week, Ticketmaster’s systems fell apart as Swift fans clamored to purchase presale tour tickets, forcing the company to cancel public ticket sales. Breaking her silence on the ticket mess, Swift said she was figuring out “how this situation can be improved moving forward” in a statement she posted to her social media. “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone,” Swift said in the post, “because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand, and we were assured that they could.”
