Features
Songkick Pressures TM’s Clients
Songkick has put Ticketmaster on notice its clients are fair game in its lawsuit over antitrust violations. Songkick attorneys plan to subpoena and seek emails from dozens of box office managers who have refused to allocate tickets over alleged violations of Ticketmaster’s fan club policy.
In February, attorneys for Songkick filed a proposed witness list that included box office managers from 17 different venues. Most of the venues – like the
By using the legal discovery process to apply pressure on Ticketmaster clients, Songkick might be trying to cajole TM into an early settlement.
In a March filing, Songkick began releasing its own internal emails, trying to demonstrate that TM-controlled box offices had routinely rejected Songkick’s fan club allotments.
It also began releasing clients’ contracts for city-owned venues it had obtained through public information requests, revealing the fees, convenience charges and other proprietary information that TM usually guards. These documents are low-hanging fruit, but Songkick has “identified approximately 125 third party promoters, artists, managers, and other artist representatives that it claims participated in alleged anticompetitive acts,” wrote TM attorney Daniel M. Wall with law firm Latham & Watkins, which is pushing back on the blanket request and fighting Songkick’s proposed 10-month discovery schedule.
Songkick has also shown that it’s willing to drag its own clients into the fight, recounting in a declaration by the company’s business development director Josh Baron that it was Alabama Shakes manager Kevin Morris who had told him that Ticketmaster was intentionally interfering with Songkick’s presales because of their lawsuit.
“I learned from Mr. Morris that he spoke with Mr. (Zeeshan) Zaidi about the issues and asked, among other things, why Defendants were acting this way,” Baron testified.
Zaidi heads up TM’s OnTour division. “As Mr. Morris recounted, Mr. Zaidi said that he had to apply pressure to
That type of revelation might cause a backlash for Songkick, who has hired crisis PR guru Michael Sitrick to run damage control. Both sides will be back in court in May fighting over an injunction to protect Songkick’s fan club business, as well as a motion to dismiss the case filed by Ticketmaster.