Ticketmaster and Live Nation, two of the largest conglomerates in the music industry, are planning to merge.

Such a consolidation would result in a company that controls nearly the entire music supply chain, from artist management to ticketing to venue ownership.

If the merger is approved by regulators, the new conglomerate would also own music fans.

Ticketmaster is the primary vendor for football tickets and tickets to every event at the Bryce Jordan Center (BJC). It's unclear how this deal would affect Penn State directly, but there would certainly be an effect. Students make up a large part of the concert-going crowd, as well as a portion of people without a lot of disposable income. This is going to make things even harder.

It is of the utmost importance that the Justice Department does not allow such a monopoly to occur.

As it stands, the two companies are already out of control.

Ticketmaster adds obscene amounts of convenience charges to the tickets it vends (including a $2.50 "shipping" charge to have the tickets e-mailed to you) and just last week was selling further marked up Bruce Springsteen tickets through one of its secondary ticket sites, even though tickets were still available at face value. Its multi-year, exclusive deals with thousands of venues should already be a matter for an anti-trust lawsuit.

Live Nation, which only recently began selling tickets, already owns or operates more than 100 different concert venues. It's also signed 360 deals (contracts that include a cut for Live Nation of any money made from recording, touring or merchandise sales) for tens of millions of dollars with bands such as U2 and Nickelback. So Chad Kroeger and Bono can afford to have personal chefs, but artists with integrity have to take second jobs as line cooks just to pay their rent.

While this deal is potentially disastrous for all but a few dozen artists, it's even worse for the millions of music fans in this country. Just about anyone who buys a CD or a concert ticket would be affected if such a trust were allowed.

Basically, with fewer options, this company would have even less incentive to offer fair pricing to customers, not that they've demonstrated any humanity in the past.

With one company exercising such massive control over the industry, legitimate competition is lost, and gone with it is any hope of affordable tickets for consumers. If a band is playing a venue with a capacity larger than a few hundred people, it's unlikely it will have a choice of who will vend tickets. The only choices you have as a consumer are to buy your tickets from this carnivorous hybrid company or just not see your favorite band.

The music industry already finds itself in rather dire straits; more greed certainly isn't going to help things.

It's not even a guarantee that it will lead to good things for Live Nation and Ticketmaster, either. Sirius and XM radio announced their plans to merge in February of 2007. Last week, only two years later, Sirius XM hired advisors for possible bankruptcy. Oops.

That said, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have a lot to gain from their merger -- namely, the elimination of each other as competition -- while very few others have any chance of benefit.

If the Justice Department allows such a merger to take place, it will be yet another nail in the music industry's coffin.