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.
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 same underlying market power and distribution problems still exist in music licensing, just as they did in 1941.
When industries are transformed by disruptive new technologies and business models, the law itself can be in for a game-changing, forced makeover.