Editing Consent decree (section)

===Precedents===
Many of the early court cases involving consent decree set precedents for the roles that judges would play in the negotiating, approving, interpreting, and modifying a settlement between two parties.<ref name="resnik2015" /><ref name=west /><ref name=":4" /> The role of the judge in regard to consent decree wavers between "rubber stamping" versus applying their own judgments to a proposed settlement.<ref name="west" /><ref>{{cite journal |last=Anderson |first=Lloyd C. |date=1996 |title=United States v. Microsoft, Antitrust Consent Decrees, and the Need for a Proper Scope of Judicial Review |journal=Antitrust Law Journal |volume=65 |pages=40 }}</ref> In 1879, ''Pacific Railroad of Missouri v. Ketchum'' bound the court's role in consent decrees to simply supporting to an agreement that parties have already established on their own.<ref name="resnik2015" /><ref>
{{ussc |name=Pacific Railroad of Missouri v. Ketchum |volume=111 |page=505 |date=1884}}.</ref> In regard to antitrust decrees, the first consent decree used in antitrust regulation under the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]] was ''[[Swift & Co. v. United States]]''.<ref name=":7">{{ussc |namee=Swift & Co. v. United States |volume=196 |page=375 |date=1905}}.</ref><ref name=":6">{{cite web |url= https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/capitalism/landmark_swift.html| title=Swift & Co. v. U.S. (1905) |last=McBride |first=Alez |date=2006 |work=Thirteen: Media with Impact |publisher=[[PBS]] |access-date=March 25, 2014}}</ref> With ''[[Swift & Co. v. United States]]'', the Supreme Court ruled that a consent decree could be modified or terminated only when new developments over time bring out a "grievous wrong" in how the ruling of the consent decree affects the parties of the suit.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":8">{{cite book |title=Antitrust Consent Decrees in Theory and Practice: Why Less Is More |last=Epstein |first=Richard A. |publisher=AEI Press |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-8447-4250-2 |location=Washington DC |url= https://archive.org/details/antitrustconsent0000epst }}</ref><ref name=":5" /> The Supreme Court supported this limited flexibility of consent decrees in ''[[United States v. Terminal Railroad Association]]'': "[A] decree will not be expanded by implication or intendment beyond the meaning of its terms when read in the light of the issues and the purposes for which the suit was brought."<ref name="mengler1987" /><ref>{{ussc |name=United States v. Terminal Railroad Association |volume=224 |page=383 |date=1912}}.</ref>

In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in ''United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp.'', that to promote finality, a court's changes to consent a decree should be rare—but the courts can modify a consent decree or frame [[injunction|injunctive]] relief to ensure the litigation achieves its purpose.<ref name=mengler1987 /><ref>{{ussc |name=United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp. |volume=391 |page=244 |date=1968}}.</ref> Before a judge can enter a consent decree, according to the rulings in ''Firefighters v. City of Cleveland''<ref name=mengler1987 /><ref name=":9">{{ussc |name=Firefighters v. City of Cleveland |volume=478 |page=501 |date=1986}}.</ref> and ''Firefighters v. Stotts''<ref>{{ussc |name=Firefighters v. Stotts |volume=467 |page=561 |date=1984}}.</ref> they must have [[Subject matter jurisdiction|subject-matter jurisdiction]], and they cannot modify a consent decree when one of the parties objects.<ref name="resnik2015" /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rabkin |first1=Jeremy A. |last2=Devins |first2=Neal E. |date=1987|title=Averting Government by Consent Decree: Constitutional Limits on the Enforcement of Settlements with the Federal Government |url= http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1423&context=facpubs |journal=[[Stanford Law Review]] |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=205 |doi=10.2307/1228830 |issn=0038-9765 |jstor=1228830 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The Supreme Court's position on how much authority a judge possesses in regard to influencing how the settlement is agreed upon is conflicting. In ''Firefighters v. City of Cleveland'', the Supreme Court ruled that consent decrees "have attributes both of contracts and of judicial decrees", so consent decrees should be treated differently for different purposes.<ref name="west" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":9" /> In ''Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail'',<ref name=rufo>{{ussc |name=Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail |volume=502 |page=367 |date=1992}}.</ref> the Supreme Court decided that courts could take into account the changing times and circumstances for more flexibility in the administration of consent decrees.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":8" />

In regard to litigation in [[performance rights organisation|performance rights organizations]] such as [[American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers]] and [[Broadcast Music, Inc.]] in ''[[United States v. ASCAP]]'', which began in 1941, the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] used consent decrees (which are amended according to the times and technology) to regulate how they issued blanket licenses to ensure that trade is not restrained and that the prices of licenses would not be competitive.<ref name=":10">{{cite web |last1=Curtner |first1=Gregory L. |last2=Kaur |first2=Atleen |title=Music Licenses: Rhyme or Reason for Antitrust |publisher=American Bar Association |url= https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/Forums/entsports/PublicDocuments/musiclicensesandantitrust.authcheckdam.pdf }}</ref><ref>{{cite report|url= https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1144246 |title=Transactions Costs and Administered Markets: License Contracts for Music Performance Rights |last=Einhorn |first=Michael A. |date=June 13, 2008 |publisher=Social Science Research Network |location=Rochester, New York |pages=61–74|ssrn=1144246 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Einhorn |first=Michael A. |date=2000 |title=Intellectual Property and Antitrust: Music Performing Rights in Broadcasting |url=http://mediatechcopy.com.orchid.arvixe.com/wp3/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ascapcolumbia.pdf |journal=Columbia-VLA Journal of Law & the Arts |volume=24 |pages=349 |access-date=February 12, 2018 |archive-date=February 12, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180212083654/http://mediatechcopy.com.orchid.arvixe.com/wp3/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ascapcolumbia.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Kleit |first=An |date=October 1, 2000 |title=ASCAP versus BMI (versus CBS): Modeling competition between and bundling by performance rights organizations |journal=Economic Inquiry |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=579–590 |doi=10.1111/j.1465-7295.2000.tb00037.x |issn=1465-7295 }}</ref> The Department of Justice reviewed the music consent decrees starting 2019, and issued a statement in January 2021 that they would not be terminating them as they still offered several efficiencies in music licensing that maintained benefits to the artists.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://deadline.com/2021/01/justice-department-antitrust-division-music-licensing-1234674832/ | title = DOJ Won't Seek To Terminate Or Modify Consent Decrees Governing Music Licensing | first=  Ted | last = Johnson | date = January 15, 2021 | access-date = January 15, 2021 | work = [[Deadline Hollywood]] }}</ref>