It makes no sense — and would flatly contradict the fundamental role of antitrust in constraining abuse of market power — to jettison the long-standing music industry antitrust consent decrees without an appropriate regulatory framework to replace them.
For retailers, over-leveraged balance sheets, immense debt service obligations and a failure to adapt to changing consumer preferences are clearly far more significant than anything Amazon has done.
The Justice Department should not lift the antitrust decrees constraining ASCAP and BMI because nothing of legal or competitive significance in music licensing has changed.
The “retail apocalypse story” is false. The lesson from Christmas ‘17 is that Amazon is good for consumers, good for competition and, yes, good for traditional retailers. Leave it be.