Tagged: monopoly

“In 2010, when the Justice Department allowed the two most dominant companies in the live music business — Live Nation and Ticketmaster — to merge, many greeted the news with dread. Live Nation was already the world’s biggest concert promoter. Ticketmaster had for years been the leading ticket provider. Critics warned that the merger would create an industry monolith, one capable of crippling competitors in the ticketing business. Federal officials tried to reassure the skeptics. They pointed to a consent decree, or legal settlement, they had negotiated as part of the merger approval. Its terms were strict, they said: It would boost competition and block monopolistic behavior by the new, larger Live Nation…Eight years after the merger, the ticketing business is still dominated by Live Nation and its operations extend into nearly every aspect of the concert world. Ticket prices are at record highs. Service fees are far from reduced. And Ticketmaster, part of the Live Nation empire, still tickets 80 of the top 100 arenas in the country. No other company has more than a handful. No competitor has risen to challenge its pre-eminence. Now Department of Justice officials are looking into serious accusations about Live Nation’s behavior in the marketplace. They have been reviewing complaints that Live Nation, which manages 500 artists, including U2 and Miley Cyrus, has used its control over concert tours to pressure venues into contracting with its subsidiary, Ticketmaster. The company’s chief competitor, AEG, has told the officials that venues it manages that serve Atlanta; Las Vegas; Minneapolis; Salt Lake City; Louisville, Ky.; and Oakland, Calif., were told they would lose valuable shows if Ticketmaster was not used as a vendor, a possible violation of antitrust law.”

Not only does Live Nation have a monopoly on the concern promotion & ticketing business, but Live Nation (as well as AEG and others) have a race-based monopoly over concerts and ticketing since most of their employees are white and/or “Jewish,” and they maintain employment practices, policies and procedures that prevent qualified African Americans and people of color from being hired to higher-status, higher-paying positions within the company.

Source: Graham Bowley and Ben Sisario. “Live Nations Rules Music Ticketing, Some Say With Threats.” The New York Times. April 1, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ticketmaster.html.

“I hesitated to include this section because even if I do elaborate, the Respondents are more than likely going to trivialize my legally sufficient arguments and continue their conspiracy to remain silent because they can’t dispute the historical and statistical evidence or extensive sociological jurisprudence I’ve provided throughout this case. Although this is an extremely daunting endeavor for a pro se litigant, I feel compelled to briefly discuss the real-life, socioeconomic and genocide effects of William Morris and Hollywood’s discriminatory and anticompeittive practices, policies and procedures. I apologize in advance for any incomplete thoughts or grammatical errors contained in this section. I simply want to preserve the record and ask that I be allowed to argue the anticompetitive effects of Hollywood’s discriminatory and anticompetitive practices in full at an oral hearing or before a jury if default judgment is not granted.”

Source: Claimant’s Reply Motion for Summary Judgment, December 31, 2013. pg. 53.

how sound are William Morris’ employment decisions, if the Agent Trainee they promoted to book urban contemporary acts in or around the time i submitted my resume, quit less than six months after being promoted to Agent? either way, he and the company were violating the Talent Agencies Act because he was not “licensed” to book artists before he was promoted to Agent.

She couldn’t and didn’t want to “mentor” and/or “promote” me because I was a threat to her monopolistic control over representing African American entertainers in urban contemporary music and the company had been engaging in an intentional pattern and practice of excluding qualified African Americans from being hired and/or promoted to higher status, higher paying jobs (e.g. Agent, Agent Trainee) since 1898 and still had zero African American Agents, Coordinators or Agent Trainees when I began employment in the New York office, September 2008. (“inexorable zero”) As a matter of law, this statistic alone can create “an inference” of racial discrimination, and can support [in addition to the extensive sociological jurisprudence cited] my claims that I entered into an insidiously discriminatory work environment or that many of the allegedly “negative” evaluations I received were due to the explicit and/or implicit racial biases of the evaluator. I was more qualified than majority, if not all, of my similarly situated white/”Jewish” counterparts that were hired into the Agent Trainee program during my employment, and I was more than qualified to have been hired as a music Agent. Based on my qualifications and relevant work experience, this would have happened had I been white and/or “Jewish.” No matter how well I got along with people or how nice some people may have appeared to be, racism was embedded into the culture of the company, and it didn’t help that the company was founded and over-represented by a group of people who falsely believe that they are “God’s chosen people” and walk around like their own shit doesn’t stink. [The original Jews are not European and/or white — something I did not know while working at the company.] This also did not help my chances of advancing [From 2000 to 2010, white/”Jewish Agent Trainees in the New York office had a reported 10 percent rate of promotion to Agent while African American Agent Trainees had a zero percent rate of promotion. Also, in the first decade of the 21st century, only one African American was hired to work as an Agent in the New York office (e.g., Mamie Baron, the first African American literary Agent in the department’s then 58 year history). When I began employment, there were 50 Agents employed. One was Asian, and the rest were white/ “Jewish. This is not accidental or “due to chance.” The company is highly conscious of race.]

When I began this case nearly four years ago, Michael P. Zweig and Christian Carbone of Loeb & Loeb LLP argued that my employment discrimination claims were “wholly without merit, legally and factually,” yet, they have not refuted the pyramid of historical, statistical, circumstantial, anecdotal, smoking gun, documentary and other forms of evidence supporting all of the claims that I have raised not only against William Morris, Loeb & Loeb LLP, Michael P. Zweig and Christian Carbone, but P. Kevin Castel, the American Arbitration Association, Timothy K. Lewis, Schnader LLP, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and others that are involved in this sinister conspiracy to interfere with the human rights of people of African descent, or in the alternative, conspiracy to maintain global white/”Jewish” supremacy (racism). Through fraud, William Morris has won another racial discrimination case in the federal court while evidence of intentional systemic disparate treatment have been ignored by the finders of fact, been awarded $43,707.60 due to my alleged “bad faith” conduct and received a filing injunction against me to prevent me from suing those who have conspired to ensure that I would be deprived of my full constitutional and statutory rights under the color of law! AmeriKKKan justice at its finest. America cannot survive too much longer under these conditions. No country could. President Obama and Congress need to step in immediately and rectify this issue. P. Kevin Castel needs to be impeached. Extreme disciplinary and monetary sanctions need to be imposed against William Morris, Loeb & Loeb LLP, Michael P. Zweig and Christian Carbone, including default judgment, disbarment and $250 million.

The Case of Monopolies and the Act of 21 James I (Statute of Monopolies) “form one of the constitutional landmarks of British liberty, like the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus act and other great constitutional acts of Parliament. They established and declared one of the inalienable rights of freemen which our ancestors brought with them to this country. The right to follow any of the common occupations of life is an inalienable right; it was formulated as such under the phrase ‘pursuit of happiness’ in the Declaration of Independence, which commenced with the fundamental proposition that, ‘all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ This right is a large ingredient in the civil liberty of the citizen. To deny it to all but a few favored individuals by investing the latter with a monopoly is to invade one of the fundamental privileges of the citizen, contrary not only to common right, but, as I think, to the express words of the Constitution.”

Source: Butchers’ Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111  U.S. 746, 762 (1884).

“Among these inalienable rights, as proclaimed in that great document [the Declaration of Independence], is the right of men to pursue their happiness, by which is meant the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment.”

Source: Butchers’ Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111  U.S. 746 (1884) (J. Fields, concurring).

“Once Hollywood loses [its] monopoly power it will lose the power to perpetuate racism.”

footnote 94

See, e.g., Faigman et al.,  supra  note 84, at 1399 (noting that the Court “has never held that only consciously held and explicit motives qualify under the applicable law” and that “[e]specially in light of the science, such a construction seems particularly crabbed and artificial”); Wax, supra  note 64, at 985 (stating that “what really matters, and what ought to matter, is whether people are treated worse because of their race — or other protected characteristic, such as sex — in the real world. Specifically, the focus should not be on attitudes or sympathies, but on…actionable discrimination…[D]iscrimination occurs when an individual is victimized by ill treatment that is causally linked to or based on a protected characteristic.”); Zatz,  supra  note 71,  at 1374-75 (stating that ― “[s]cholars agree that the causal definition best captures the doctrinal category of ‘disparate treatment‘”).

Source: Tristin K. Green. The Future of Systemic Disparate Treatment Law pg. 24, footnote 94. 2011.

“If [racial] bias exists amongst those who have the power and control over the marketplace of ideas – from our news to film – the Court must consider what effect this has on the millions absorbing these subtly tainted messages and how that influences their views – consciously and unconsciously – on race.” — MIW, May 3, 2011.

My second public interest argument briefly discussed William Morris and Hollywood’s (e.g. talent agencies, film studios, television networks, and the media) “cabal-like practices” and its direct effect on shaping the thoughts, values, beliefs, behavior, etc. of millions of human beings throughout the world via powerful communicative mediums such as television and film. (¶62-69; Emergency Motion, 15-16.) In Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952), the Supreme Court expressed that film was a “significant medium for the communication of ideas.” According to “State of Media: TV Usage Trends Q2 2010” data released by Nielsen, there are an estimated 286 million persons in the U.S. viewing an average of 143 hours of television each month. (“Exhibit D”) As our nation’s education ranking continues to decline globally, television has become a large source for how Americans receive information. The research indicates that these mediums of “social conditioning” are a major source for unconscious racism and have the ability to distort our views on race as early as age four. If bias exists amongst those who have the power and control over the marketplace of ideas – from our news to film – the Court must consider what effect this has on the millions absorbing these subtly tainted messages and how that influences their views – consciously and unconsciously – on race. [pg. 9]

monopolies are a threat to democracy!

Opposition to monopoly, important but not critical in determining the affairs of the first Bank of the United States, became a chief weapon against the second Bank. President Jackson and his lieutenants, who led the movement, attacked the Bank on two scores: since its charter expressly guaranteed that the federal government would create no other banks, it was a monopoly in the strict legal sense; since it was too big and rich, it was also a monopoly in the broader political sense. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, the Bank’s chief opponent in the Senate, argued accordingly that it was objectionable not only “on account of the exclusive privileges, and anti-republican monopoly, which it gives to the stockholders,” but also “because it tends to aggravate the inequality of fortunes” and is “an institution too great and powerful to be tolerated in a Government of free and equal laws.“‘ Jackson, when he vetoed the bill renewing -the Bank’s charter, emphasized the “great evils to our country and institutions [that] might flow from such a concentration of power in the hands of a few men irresponsible to the people.”

When and where did America go wrong?

Source: William L. Letwin, Congress and the Sherman Antitrust Law: 1887-1890, The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 23, p. 226 (1956).