Violation of the law is a class A misdemeanor punishable by $500 per ticket, or any profits made from each instance, whichever is higher. Let's make a change Tennessee and make scalping illegal. So the antitrust attack on Ticketmaster is in reality a disguised attack on artists for exercising the prerogative that every business has to set the prices and terms on which they will do business. Resale, the argument goes, increases allocative efficiency because scalpers distribute tickets to those who will pay the most money for them. There have been no prosecutions in Nashville since the law took effect in 2008, according to the Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk's Office. If you have already been charged with ticket scalping, an experienced criminal defense attorney can advise you of your legal rights and available defenses and represent you fully in court. Look at the recently unveiled Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights that a coalition of reseller front groups published: two of the pillars of this proposal are The Right to Transferability and a Right to Set the Price, so that companies who originally sold the tickets cannot dictate to fans for what price they can or cannot resell their purchased tickets. Fans would not benefit from this at all. The company invests in its own anti-bot software. Ticket scalping is the practice of re-selling tickets to events. Who is the enforcement entity in Tennessee? This leaves customers with no choice but to buy them at wild costs. Further, we have seen the same with political events, stand-up comedy performances, as well as live recordings of television shows. 74 0 obj<>stream Why Ticket Scalpers Aren't the Submit your case to start resolving your legal issue. No one seemed to notice the Napster-like product that StubHub had created, which allowed concert tickets rather than songs to be resold over the internet without any compensation to the artist. 0000004833 00000 n Two tickets, $600! One week before a new Missouri law will kick in legalizing ticket scalping at sporting events, scalpers like Bill, who declined to give his last name, combed their way through the crowd. As James Carville might say, Its the tickets, stupid! All the rest, including the antitrust-flavored attacks on Live Nation and Ticketmaster, are just camouflage for the one thing that the resale sites want: government intervention to keep tickets fully transferable. What Is Ticket Scalping? How Does It Work? | SEON Ticketmaster does not make that decision either; it just follows the artists instructions. WebIn the US, ticket scalping is the practice of buying and reselling event tickets by private citizens, rather than by the sponsoring venue or organization, usually at a much higher price than their face value. TechTimes has Listed GeeTest among the Top 5 Best Bot Mitigation Companies in 2023. It does not work at all if artists are able to deliver tickets directly to the fans who want to attend the show at the prices the artist selected because, to state the obvious, those people wont resell their tickets. Attempts to reintroduce ticket scalping regulations failed in all three states during 2011. In New Jersey, this limit goes to $3 or 20% of the ticket price (whichever is greater). 1.5. Did you know that 4 out of 5 event tickets are purchased by bots every day? Hln0)XJTUH]spp1M. Taxes in Retirement Seminar at The John P. Holt Brentwood Library, Nashville Area Chamber Of Commerce: Small Business Week Feature: Faith Family Medical Center, Whos Hiring In The Nashville Area: This Weeks Newest Job Openings, Nashville Area: Check Out 5 Local Homes On The Market, Nashville Area Chamber Of Commerce: Meet The Veterans | Shane Minnick, Retired Special Forces Senior Enlisted NCO. The license a consumer receives when he buys Microsoft Word is to use it, not to resell it. The council bill, sponsored by councilmembers Freddie O'Connell and Nancy VanReece, would make it a misdemeanor to sell or offer for sale tickets on public rights-of-way and sidewalks adjoining Ryman Auditorium, Ascend Amphitheater, the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, War Memorial Auditorium and First Tennessee Park. Its about scalper freedom. No need for a new law. The argument is based on the economic concept of allocative efficiency, which in laymans terms means that an economy functions best when goods and services are distributed to those who value them most and pay accordingly. Those laws may be different from the law in the state in which the seller resides. The ticket scalping ticket would carry a $25 to $50 fine. Dean Budnick studied why concerts are so expensive and why average fans get shut out in their quest for tickets in his book "Ticket Masters.". 0000007658 00000 n Some online auction sites try to prevent illegal ticket scalping by removing offers that violate state scalping laws, or by reporting illegal transactions to the proper authorities. Resale sites have a long history of complaining about anything that might lessen the flow of tickets to the resale marketplaceand of lodging those complaints without regard to obvious consumer interests like reducing fraud. Companies looking to stop scalping are advised to follow a layered, multi-pronged approach thats informed by historical data and trends. Your One of them is. And the mothers milk of that industry is access to tickets, particularly tickets to the most popular shows and sporting events. Ticket Scalping Generally speaking, however, states that do consider ticket scalping to be illegal will issue fines for up to $1,000 and/or a jail sentence for no longer than one Several events that I have tried to get tickets to recently, the same issue arose. When all seemed lost, a new generation of CAPTCHA came to turn the tides. Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing. Resale marketplaces want antitrust law to protect their narrow commercial interests, not anything about competition or consumer welfare. Number of prosecutions in Davidson County: 0. StubHub flourished, becoming one of Americas fastest-growing private companies before it was acquired by eBay in January 2007 for a reported $310 million. After that, they resell them with inflated prices. Fans would lose because artists would be stripped of their current ability to restrict sales to real fans at prices the artists choose. You are our people. 0000002252 00000 n Steve McDonnell's experience running businesses and launching companies complements his technical expertise in information, technology and human resources. These states are as follows: Before buying or selling tickets on the internet, you should get familiar with the applicable state laws. These tickets are bought by automated software in order to be resold at a higher price. Webticket scalping legal).32 Between 1989 and 2008 there were no regulations specifically related to ticket resells in Tennesseethe market forces of supply and demand were Tennessees Supreme Court upheldformer criminal statutes which prohibited any resale of tickets for a profit or Ticket scalping, or the practice of selling an event ticket for more than its face value, has been illegal in Michigan. Price protection is only for medical and basic goods. The idea they have been selling for years that those property rights already exist is simply false. tickets illegal Did Oklahoma City and the City of Las Vegas both prohibit the practice. All rights reserved. At the soccer WC last summer in Germany I saw a lot of people walking around city centers with "I need a The Tories' changes leave the scalper bot prohibition intact and increase fines for non-compliance with the act from $10,000 to $25,000. 0000001037 00000 n LegalMatch, Market 2023 Live Nation Worldwide, Inc. All rights reserved. And for SeatGeek and StubHub as well, professional resellers that are somehow getting thousands of tickets far more than anyone could acquire legitimately fuel the business. Members of the License Bureau are only out for very big events like Red White and Boom or an OSU football game. For what it is worth, tolerance of scalping varies greatly from country to country. While most new Tennessee laws are timed to take effect July 1, when the state's new fiscal year begins, a few are tied to New Year's Day. Enforcing the law is complicated for a variety of reasons, including highly sophisticated software that scalpers use to crack computer systems that companies such as Ticketmaster use to sell tickets. "Every event that's going to drive any level of demand has its challenges with scalpers whose goal is to deceive and break the law.". She also taught civil procedure in the Paralegal program at Santa Clara University. It varies 0000003426 00000 n One of them is ticket scalping. 12 0 obj<> endobj Secondary ticketing: how it works, law, pitfalls and future It's a deterrent. A further four leave it up to individual municipalities to decide. NYC Criminal Court Opinions and Cases | FindLaw Breast Ultrasound Screening Coming Direct to You! But predictably, scalper lobbyists and mouthpieces claim these innovations hurt fans because they interfere with some supposed freedom to resell tickets at a profit. 9mpq 8}; fJun*l]m%2,2DT' JPb They claimed it was anticompetitive when Ticketmaster transitioned from paper tickets to secure digital ticketing. Similarly, concert tickets grant permission for the buyers to attend the show. In American law, the distinction between a sale and a license is day and night. Susan is a member of the State Bar of California. These can be tickets of any type but often involve major sports and music events. %PDF-1.4 % %%EOF There are a number of reasons for that practice, but high on the list is that artists who are trying to cultivate a loyal fan base care about affordability. All rights reserved. Ticket scalping is now legal in Michigan The result is that most consumers are not able to purchase tickets when they are sold originally and are left with buying tickets on the resale market at a substantial markup. '3e2eCW@Hf5s0.RxX}PvtukR a O This is a day to make money, he said. Connecticut, Minnesota and Missouri had laws restricting ticket resales and repealed them. They understand that not everyone can pay what the market will bear, and they want to ensure that some sizable portion of the venue is affordable to younger or less affluent fans. Similarly, since hotels license permission to stay in their rooms, they can prohibit ordinary consumers from reselling those rooms while allowing Expedia to license a block of rooms and resell them. Ticket Scalping Laws | LegalMatch