Live Nation tells court the FTC has the BOTS Act backward
In a 37-page answer filed in Los Angeles, Live Nation and Ticketmaster deny every allegation they don’t specifically admit and call the FTC’s suit “misguided.”
Live Nation and Ticketmaster say the FTC is trying to “flip the Act on its head.” In a 37-page filing made October 13 in federal court in Los Angeles, the companies called the agency’s lawsuit “misguided” and denied every factual allegation they did not specifically admit.
The FTC and seven states sued in September 2025. They allege Ticketmaster knowingly let brokers use hundreds or thousands of accounts to exceed artists’ ticket limits, then resold those tickets on its own marketplace, collecting fees at each step. The complaint cites an internal email in which an executive allegedly said the companies “turn a blind eye as a matter of policy.” It puts consumer spending on mandatory fees from 2019 to 2024 at more than $16.4 billion, and Ticketmaster’s resale fees at $3.7 billion.
The companies argue that the BOTS Act, a 2016 law aimed at scalpers, was meant to back companies like theirs, and that the FTC’s reading would make every new anti-abuse measure a liability. Platforms would respond, they say, by dropping limits or resale services. The filing says Ticketmaster blocked nearly 260 million bot attempts a day in 2025, and that it now uses all-in pricing.
The filing lists 16 affirmative defenses, among them that the law is unconstitutionally vague as applied and that the FTC gave no fair notice. Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong rejected the companies’ bid to dismiss the case on September 28, writing that “the BOTS Act does not preclude platforms from facing liability.” She also said the court was not deciding whether the accusations are true.
The case is separate from the antitrust suit in which a Manhattan jury found in April that the companies illegally monopolized primary ticketing at major US venues.
