Ticket Master is part of Live Nation Entertainment and Live Nation is the Ticket Master of the promoter and venue side. They are the largest promoter in the US. If an artist tries to circumvent the TicketMaster/Live Nation monopoly they will find that they aren't able to book any of the venues in the market they need. This a near monopoly, they are the mob. No startup is going to "fix" this.

Live Nations was spun out of Clear Channel which controls the majority of the important radio stations in the US. Needless to say the relationship between Clear Channel and Live Nation is a very "special" one. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Nation_(events_promoter)

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/business/25ticket.html?mcu...