Strange story… this guys startup filed an antitrust lawsuit against TicketMaster which ended up with TicketMaster… acquiring his company? Seems like something is being left out.
> Songkick shut down in October 2017 after earlier declaring bankruptcy. In January 2018, Live Nation reached a $110 million settlement with Songkick to resolve an antitrust lawsuit the startup had filed under which Live Nation agreed to acquire Songkick’s technology assets and patents.
Seems straightforward enough. Startup threatens to disrupt incumbent. Incumbent does shady things. Startup sues. Incumbent settles for money and IP that makes the threat go away.
Songkick pivoted too late into trying to establish their own thing, but by that time were deep into affiliate revenue from existing players. They'd painted themselves into a corner they couldn't get out of.
I interviewed there very early and was very impressed by the team, but I also declined as I already had experience in the music industry and I believed you had to build alternative ticketing and meaningful data for artists, promoters and venues to be in a position to move up the chain (venue size)... I also believed you had to start small and go slow and go up that chain at the same speed artists do... that a ticketing company should have their own fans, the artists... that it takes 1-2 decades to beat the Ticketmaster racket.
In the early phase Songkick were looking at a business model which was "we'll sell you merchandise for that gig you went to" and only later was "we'll sell you the tickets"... by the time they'd pivoted they'd had too much investment and needed revenue, and they took the affiliate revenue which then made it hard to pivot.
It was a good team, a good company, and I remain impressed with what they achieved as well as having the guts to sue Ticketmaster whilst taking the affiliate revenue. But in the end, I wish they'd have understood the touring aspect better and sooner.
Yooooo I _love_ everything you’ve posted on this thread. Read the blog post, had my thoughts, came here and saw them (and more) written out better than I could ever communicate hah.
Have you seen what Venue Pilot is up to? Product feels like it has a ways to go, but the overarching idea & presented feature set is banger IMO.
Standout to me is the integration of the entire booking flow into the ticketing backend; holds, offer, date(s) confirmed, offer produces settlement, settlement is semi or fully auto generated from ticket sales, etc etc.
Feels like that tooling is so obvious to anyone with a technical background, yet it’s completely non existent in this world of business. Not sure VenuePilot has it dialed (yet?) but I am digging where their heads are at.
They settled out of court, and there's nothing that says the terms can't be ironic. It's just whatever both parties agree to.
Let's assume Songkick sued because their company is essentially doomed due to Ticketmaster's bad behavior. Then Songkick needs an outcome that addresses that. One outcome is that Ticketmaster's behavior could change. Another outcome is Ticketmaster can pay Songkick for whatever the business might have been worth if it had succeeded.
It's analogous to buying a product that has a repair, replace, or refund guarantee. Ticketmaster changing their behavior is like repair: you get to enjoy the thing you were expecting to have. Shutting down the company and selling part of it to Ticketmaster is like refund: you don't get to enjoy the thing, and you get money instead.
This outcome doesn't improve things for consumers. But it's Songkick bringing the suit, and Songkick is a business whose primary goal is to look out for themselves. If some consumer group had brought the suit, their goal would be consumer protection.
> In January 2018, shortly prior to a pending trial, Live Nation settled the lawsuit for $110 million, and also acquired the remaining intellectual property not sold to WMG for an undisclosed amount.
It sounds like after the sale of the part of the company not involved in the lawsuit to WMG, they basically had no reason to keep the IP so they sold it to whoever wanted it.
More likely: you start out with a smallish company trying to compete with a behemoth. You do well for a while, but as soon as you become an active threat, you start hearing a lot of "we'd love to work with you, but we just signed an exclusive deal with the behemoth that gives us access to a lot of high value stuff they won't allow otherwise." Your company is starved of revenue and dwindles. Eventually you decide to sue.
That gets real messy real fast, since no matter how strong your case is, you're going up against an entity with deep pockets to keep lots of lawyers tangling things up. You don't have the cash to fund both an expensive litigation and keep paying your employees to run the actual business that is being slowly starved of oxygen by the same monopolistic practices that you're suing for and can prove are happening.
The behemoth's objective now is to make you go away with the least total cost to them. A large settlement alone would not result in you going away; if you manage to hang on for that long by borrowing against everything you own, then the cash infusion could revitalize your company enough to compete for real. But if the behemoth gets your IP, the threat to them is mostly neutralized (assuming you retain the rights to use your own IP, you'd be competing on a supposedly even playing field, but with a gorilla that can do everything you can do and set prices just low enough to finish starving you out.) So the behemoth offers you a sweet deal: a large lump of cash in exchange for handing over the IP and going away. You will try to stand on principle and refuse for as long as you can, but the writing is on the wall. And your employees' families are hungry. How willing are you to hurt them in order to hurt the behemoth?
So sure, money is speaking, but it's not saying what you think it is: it's not whispering enticements.
It is yelling threats.
[I know nothing about this specific situation, but I have seen this play out in others.]
Truly, I appreciate this angle and I gave the benefit of the doubt to the author -- but to start a company by suing TicketMaster instead of competing on good faith... And to eventually sell your IP to them in order to help them be the behemoth you hate... It just doesn't make sense to me.
> Songkick shut down in October 2017 after earlier declaring bankruptcy. In January 2018, Live Nation reached a $110 million settlement with Songkick to resolve an antitrust lawsuit the startup had filed under which Live Nation agreed to acquire Songkick’s technology assets and patents.
https://variety.com/2020/music/news/ticketmaster-10-million-...