The Biz: Live Nation Earnings Fallout; BOTS Act Trial Latest; Copyright Change May Squeeze Indie Acts

Live Nation had what would technically be considered a mixed earnings report Tuesday. Revenues beat estimates —the nearly $3.8 billion in sales was close to a first quarter record for the company and ahead of estimates by about 5% — but profits were well off the mark. While analysts had anticipated a loss in the mid-30 cents per share, Live Nation reported a whopping loss of $1.85 per share.

The company had a good reason for the hit: it booked $450 million in “legal accrual,” in anticipation of damages following a jury finding that the live giant operated an illegal monopoly; in a technical sense, the jury awarded damages to the plaintiff states of $150 million which will be trebeled during the remedies phase.

The Street was unfazed by the eye-popping loss — without it, doing some back of the napkin math, Live Nation’s EPS would have been on the positive side in the high single digits, which would represent a significant beat on expectations, but that’s a bit like saying if the New England Patriots hadn’t allowed Seattle’s defense or special teams to score in Super Bowl LX that they would have won the game.

In any case, shares of LYV jumped after hours and had a strong sustained performance throughout the day Wednesday — reports that Ticketmaster is cutting 350 jobs probably helped goose the price too, as traders love cost-cutting measures.

CEO Michael Rapino and CFO Joe Berchtold painted a fairly rosy picture on the post-release call, as well. For starters, the pair emphasized the strength of the venue side of their business

“Our Venue Nation strategy is set to drive significant growth as we expand our fan base and enhance venue experiences,” Rapino said with Berchtold saying the company is “strategically reinvesting Ticketmaster cashflows into venue expansion” with an aim at “long-term growth.”

In the report, Live Nation said it expected amps to carry the company in Q3 — which includes most of the high-shed-traffic summer months — but one analyst, at least, wondered if revenues would suffer as historically amps are the sector hit hardest when costs rise for the consumer — particularly fuel costs — because tickets to amp shows tend to be purchased closer to showtime than equivalent arena and stadium tickets.

“Focused the team on the supply to make sure we have the show count. We definitely have that this year. We know sitting in May, the demand side. We would know by this time of the year how we’re filling up for the summer. It’s not last minute. It’s on sale. As you see from the numbers in our releases, we’re tracking ahead of last year on show count, on ticket sales, up over double digits,” Berchtold said. “We see a strong year in amphitheaters. We think they’re a great product. Demand will always be there. They tend to be lower priced than arenas and stadiums. It’s a lower cost entry point to come in, so it’s a volume game. On-site just started. We’re days into the season. We see positive numbers so far. Our premium sales, our on-sites, and our demand is gonna have a strong 2026 in amps.”

Berchtold also said cancellations are expected so the seeming spate of recent scratches isn’t as dramatic as it seems, as the company expects 1-2% of its amp dates to be scotched every year.

Live Nation Asks For Dismissal Of BOTS Act Case

Attorneys for Live Nation argued that a judge’s decision that a Maryland ticket reseller would have to face trial in a FTC BOTS Act prosecution means its own BOTS Act case should be dismissed.

U.S. District Court Judge George Levi Russell III found that the BOTS Act — a much-referenced but rarely utilized law meant to curb automated purchasing of tickets — can apply to nonautomated purchases. Key Investment Group, the company behind resale sites TotalTickets.com and Front Rose Tix, had argued it could not be charged with BOTS Act violations because it only used digital tools with human users, rather than “bots,” to purchase tickets and said Ticketmaster does not actually “enforce posted event ticket purchasing limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online ticket purchasing order rules,” and that Ticketmaster is “well aware” of the various tools used by the secondary industry, including the IP-spoofing browser, multiple SIM cards and pseudonymous accounts.

In his ruling, Russell said he was “unconvinced” that the FTC prosecution was inconsistent with the law’s language.

“The statute unambiguously applies to ‘any person’ and not just to ‘bots,’” he wrote, saying the elevated ticket prices could be caused “either by ‘bots,’ or humans who write the code behind the ‘bots,’ or individuals who work in concert to recreate what bots otherwise accomplish.”

In the separate case against Live Nation, FTC attorneys noted the ruling in a filing, saying “The court’s order, which further supports the Plaintiffs’ opposition to Defendants’ motion to dismiss, is filed herewith as Exhibit A.”

Live Nation’s lawyers, unsurprisingly, disagreed: “The KIG decision does not support Plaintiffs’ position in this case and only bolsters Defendants’ arguments for dismissal.”

Live Nation argued that the judge’s decision actually bolsters the dismissal bid because he repeatedly treated Ticketmaster as a victim of KIG’s actions rather than an accomplice.

“The court described how ‘Ticketmaster has certain security measures so that consumers can purchase tickets at a reasonable price’ and how the defendants ‘bypass[ed] these security measures,'” Ticketmaster’s attorneys argued. “This understanding of the law is consistent with Defendants’ argument—and all prior BOTS Act cases—that the BOTS Act was enacted to support the efforts of platforms like Ticketmaster against scalpers, not to impose liability on the very platforms whose controls are being circumvented.”

Copyright Registration Hike Will Hurt Indies, Advocates Argue

The U.S. Copyright Office is proposing a 43% increase in registration fees, a move a coalition representing independent artists says will harm indie acts.

The coalition — The American Association of Independent Musi, the Artist Rights Alliance, Music Managers Forum–US, The Recording Academy, the Society of Composers & Lyricists , Songwriters of North America, the Songwriters Guild of America, Music Artists Coalition, the American Federation of Musicians and the Future of Music Coalition — notes that while the median hourly wage for musicians and singers has, in nominal terms, risen 35% since the last fee review in 2020, in real terms it’s only about 10% when factoring for inflation.

Registration gives indie acts access to remedy for infringement from the Copyright Claims Board, which saves acts from the expense of initiating and fighting an IP suit in federal court. By raising the barrier for entry with a price increase, indie artists could find it difficult to protect their works, the coalition argued.