Live Nation has been hit with at least three proposed class action lawsuits over a data breach involving Social Security numbers, government ID numbers, and health records.
Amanda Fraga filed her complaint in the US District Court for the Central District of California on Tuesday (October 6), and Toby Gosman and Isiah Ramos filed theirs in the same court on Wednesday (October 7).
Fraga and Gosman say they are former Live Nation employees who gave the company their personal information in connection with their jobs. Ramos does not say he worked for Live Nation; his complaint says he provided his information “in connection with obtaining services from” the company.
Live Nation reported the breach to the Vermont Attorney General‘s office on October 1, according to the office’s public log of security breach notices.
The log lists two Vermont residents as affected.
The three complaints, which MBW has reviewed, were filed by different law firms but are almost word-for-word identical.
Fraga, a resident of Brooklyn, New York, is represented by Scott Edelsberg of Edelsberg Law. Ramos, a resident of Champaign, Illinois, is represented by John J. Nelson of Milberg.
Gosman, a Minnesota resident, is represented by Kristen Lake Cardoso of Kopelowitz Ostrow.
The jurisdiction section of Gosman‘s complaint nonetheless describes the plaintiff as “a citizen of New York,” the same wording used in Fraga’s complaint.
All three plaintiffs say they learned of the breach from an article they read online.
The complaints allege, “upon information and belief,” that Live Nation had not encrypted the compromised data, and that each plaintiff’s information is now available on the dark web.
They also allege that Live Nation “did not notify impacted people for over four months after learning of the Data Breach.” None of the complaints says when the breach took place or when Live Nation learned of it.
All three bring claims of negligence and negligence per se, breach of implied contract, and unjust enrichment against Live Nation, on behalf of a proposed nationwide class.
Each estimates that the class is made up of “at least thousands of members” and cites the Federal Trade Commission Act in support of its negligence claim.
They seek damages, including punitive damages, as well as lifetime credit monitoring for class members and a court order requiring Live Nation to improve its data security.
All three complaints state that the amount in controversy exceeds USD $5 million, citing the federal Class Action Fairness Act.
Live Nation confirmed the incident in a statement to MBW today (October 8), saying a “small number of individuals” may have been affected.
Live Nation‘s statement read in full: “Live Nation takes the security of our systems and the information entrusted to us seriously. Recently, we identified, contained and secured a cybersecurity incident.
“Following a thorough internal review and independent investigation by a leading cybersecurity firm, we found the incident was limited in scope and had no impact on our operations. The small number of individuals whose information may have been affected are being notified and offered support in monitoring their information.”
“Following a thorough internal review and independent investigation by a leading cybersecurity firm, we found the incident was limited in scope and had no impact on our operations.”
Live Nation Entertainment
The statement did not say how many people were affected overall. Live Nation had not responded to a follow-up request for comment on the lawsuits by the time of publication.
The Vermont log does not give a date for the incident and notes that the number of residents listed for any company may increase as that company establishes the full total.
Live Nation’s subsidiary Ticketmaster was hit by data breaches in 2018 and 2024.
Live Nation said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on May 31, 2024, that on May 20 it had identified “unauthorized activity within a third-party cloud database environment containing Company data (primarily from its Ticketmaster L.L.C. subsidiary).”
The filing added that on May 27, 2024, “a criminal threat actor offered what it alleged to be Company user data for sale via the dark web.”
Federal lawsuits over that breach were later consolidated in Montana, in multidistrict litigation over a cluster of 2024 breaches on the cloud platform Snowflake.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation are among the defendants in that case, alongside Snowflake and other Snowflake clients including AT&T.
In August, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that Canadian national Connor Riley Moucka, 26, had pleaded guilty to a hacking conspiracy that compromised over 165 victim organizations.
The DOJ did not name those organizations, but TechCrunch has reported that Moucka was accused of breaching Snowflake customers including Ticketmaster.
Moucka is scheduled to be sentenced on October 27.
In November 2020, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined Ticketmaster UK GBP £1.25 million over the 2018 breach, which stemmed from a cyberattack on a chatbot on its online payment page.
The ICO said that breach potentially affected 9.4 million Ticketmaster customers across Europe, including 1.5 million in the UK.
Live Nation reported the breach to Vermont a day before Ticketmaster customers across the US ran into problems with ticket transfers. There is no indication the two incidents are connected.
On October 2, fans complained of failed ticket transfers for events including Harry Styles at Madison Square Garden in New York and Bruno Mars at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, TicketNews reported.
Saumil Mehta, Ticketmaster’s Global President, wrote in an October 2 reply on X: “I’m here. Not active on Twitter since we are working on this issue.
“Apologies. We know there are stuck transfers and we are working to clear them.”
By October 3, Ticketmaster’s Fan Support account was telling customers: “As of 12pm ET/9am PT, the majority of pending transfers are being processed within 60 minutes, most completing in under 10 minutes.”
As of Tuesday (October 6), Ticketmaster had not publicly explained the cause of the disruption or how many customers it affected, TicketNews reported.
The Coalition for Ticket Fairness, which lobbies on ticketing issues and campaigns for fans’ right to transfer and resell tickets, blamed the disruption on Ticketmaster’s dominance of live event ticketing.
“Fans were standing outside venues holding tickets they paid for and couldn’t use,” said Geoff Vetter, a spokesperson for the coalition, in a statement to Digital Music News. “This is the unfortunate but clear consequence of allowing one company’s unprecedented control over live event ticketing.
“When Ticketmaster goes down, fans, venues, artists, and the small businesses that serve them all go down with it.
“Ticketmaster has spent years solidifying control, and this is the result. When a fan’s ticket only works if Ticketmaster’s system is working, they don’t really own their ticket.
“Fans deserve real competition, real choice, and the freedom to use and transfer their tickets on the platform they choose. No industry should accept a single point of failure this big.”
The lawsuits also come as Live Nation contests the outcome of its antitrust trial in New York.
On April 15, a Manhattan federal jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster had illegally monopolized primary ticketing at major US concert venues, and that Live Nation had monopolized the market for large amphitheaters. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia took the case to verdict after the DOJ settled in March.
The companies have since asked US District Judge Arun Subramanian to throw out the verdict or, failing that, order a new trial. Subramanian heard arguments on July 31 and has yet to rule.Music Business Worldwide
