A lawsuit filed in California by concert giant AXS has revealed a legal and technological battle between ticket scalpers and platforms like Ticketmaster and AXS, in which scalpers have figured out how to extract “untransferable” tickets from their accounts by generating entry barcodes on parallel infrastructure that the scalpers control and which can then be sold and transferred to customers.

By reverse-engineering how Ticketmaster and AXS actually make their electronic tickets, scalpers have essentially figured out how to regenerate specific, genuine tickets that they have legally purchased from scratch onto infrastructure that they control. In doing so, they are removing the anti-scalping restrictions put on the tickets by Ticketmaster and AXS.

So Ticketmaster and AXS are suing to maintain their monopoly on scalping?

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    144
    ·
    6 months ago

    Jesus, is there any way both sides can lose? Because fuck ticket scalpers, but fuck Ticketmaster too.

    • voxel@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      6 months ago

      I’d rather deal with scalpers than this monopolistic bullshit

        • LordCrom@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          19
          ·
          6 months ago

          I’d rather be able to sell my ticket if I can’t go for at least face value. Ticketmaster sometime won’t let you sell the ticket to another person, or only allows you to sell back to them at 1/10th the face value…just so they can resell it again. Didnt even mention all the convenience fees for all those trades too.

          If I had a paper ticket, I could just sell it no problem

          • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            6 months ago

            Going through a scalper means that the ticket supply is artificially decreased, which pumps up the price. Then you run the risk of your ticket not working when you turn up to the venue.

            • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              6 months ago

              Scalping increases the liquidity of tickets. This establishes a “market price” that can be higher or lower than the face value.