Amid growing calls for Congress to crack down on the scourge of digital scalping, the top lawyer for StubHub today mounted a careful defense of ticket bot technology, stating that similar software underlies much of the internet’s crucial infrastructure and could be threatened by broad regulatory action that lacks technological specifics.
7 comments:
Just off the bat, I think that the Senate proposing an anti-scalper bill is an invaluable thing for any fans of the entertainment industry. The concept that people buy a ridiculous amount of tickets and then mark them up and sell them again immediately is a sleazy one, and one that ranges all the way from theatre to concerts to movie premieres and everything in between. Hamilton is a perfect example of how this system slights all but the top 1% who can't afford to spend thousands of dollars on an orchestra seat. Do they have any less of a right to a ticket just because they didn't have the opportunity to buy tickets a year before the day they want to see it? I think that the "Not all bots are malicious" line is a clear anti-government line of malarkey. A ticket bot that is programmed to make the owner money at the cost of the entertainment of real people doesn't deserve to be treated as a kind entity. I'm glad the Senators were able to be joking about the matter, but to the general public, this is very serious. In a society where the dollar means less every day, and normal people aren't able to go to the theatre more than once every few years thanks to these soaring ticket costs, then theatre as an art form becomes meaningless.
I think this ticket bot debate is very important. Ticket bots ruin the chance for normal people to get reasonably priced tickets to the event of their choice. It is not fair that the few people running the ticket bots make a lot of money off of the events and are also taking more money from the customers. It is especially a problem fro Hamilton because it is so popular and some people will pay anything just to see the show. A lot of the theatre community is students or people that do not have a lot of money. They cannot afford to go see a show that costs a few hundred dollars. Students are the people that need to see theatre because they are the future of theatre and the more exposed they are, the better they will be. Hamilton is such a different show that everyone should see and it is a shame that ticket bots are making it even harder for people to see it.
What StubHub does is basically capitalizing on the talent and hard work of people in the creative industry. It turns ticket sales -- the honest, simple, traditional profiting model -- into a kind of malicious auction, which doesn't benefit the artists or audience, but benefits StubHub itself. I think this is an example of technology being used in the wrong way. The original function of Stubhub is supposed to provide a user-friendly platform for broadway shows (and others) to reach to a broader audience, but in the background it is using bots to manipulate this process for greater profits.
I also find it interesting that the article says, "StubHub's Cohen acknowledged that the misuse of bot software has harmed the ticket-buying public, but he said they are only one component to the problem and urged a more comprehensive dialogue with other stakeholders, including Ticketmaster." It sounds like StubHub understands the essence of its behavior, but it is scared of losing the competition and it is asking not to be punished alone. Bots are probably not the "only one component to the problem," but they definitely reflect a common phenomenon in the online ticket-selling industry that needs to fixed. A "comprehensive dialogue" needs to happen, and all companies that facilitate online scalping should face regulations.
Ticket bots are something you don’t often hear about, but it also makes more sense as to how so many shows, performances, and sporting event ticket prices go up so exorbitantly much. At least I know of one artist who is able to sway away from that trend. I attended a Garth Brooks concert back in August with my family, and evern before when I had started thinking about going to the concert, I looked online and every seat was the same price. I had forgotten that Garth Brooks made it a common habit that wherever he goes, ticket prices are the same in the entire house. It gives everyone a chance no matter what to get a front row seat or a nose bleed seat. That in and of itself is a situation that he was able to overcome, because what’s the point for ticket scalpers at that point, there’s no way you can make any money that way. I haven’t been to a Broadway show yet, and I know the caliber of performance should be terrific, but people want to cheat the system anyway they can, and it’s unfortunate.
I like how the senate is trying to right a wrong in the ticketing industry. However I feel like this will not help the cause. People who do this will still find ways to score a bunch of tickets and sell them at an increase price. This has been going on for years. Its surprising that hamilton was the show were the government started to step in. Why was not it not before? Just because a show is very popular does not mean it should get special treatment. This ticketing issue has been going on for years in many different industries like concert or sporting events. Im glad the government is now trying to help the cause. Hopefully in the future there will be less and less ticketing issues.
Ticket scalpers, or resale sights are quickly becoming the ultimate scourge of all kinds of live entertainment, from football games to Broadway and particularly concerts where one-time limited ticket performances are a ripe target they abuse the customer for profit without contributing to the performance. This is incredibly frustrating for the audience who pays inflated prices marked up at some absurd rate and for the artist who is not actually getting any of that additional money their fans are being charged and who’s performances now have such a large barrier to entry. While I’m wary of a non tech savvy congress passing another law about the use of the internet I also think something obviously needs to be done. Maybe this something is granting the performers a right to sue stubhub and other ticket scalpers, shutting down the businesses but that is probably going to require a supreme court case which is a long way off.
I can say with confidence that scalpers are the scum of the earth. Perhaps not as scummy as other, maybe more serious criminals, but they certainly have place picked out for them in the pantheon of hell. Essentially, they see a cool event and say " Oh, you wanted to go see something you enjoy at a reasonable price, ha ha how naive, I'm going to twist this situation to purely my own financial gain and restrict access for many people to come see this live event and thus contribute to the decline of live entertainment as a whole!"
Hyperbole aside, scalpers are essentially a leech on each and every semi-successful paid or free ticketed event. While I have seen many valiant efforts to curb this behaviour, such as recently, Chance the rapper buying out all the scalper's tickets and reselling them cheaper. Or security measures such as ordering tickets with only on name, or limiting 5 tickets to a household, major ticket sellers like Ticketmaster and Stubhub are perfectly content with the situation, since they get their cut, as well as their "convenience fees" and "technology fees" and their "we want your money fees". I am glad that there is an effort to legislate the murky territory of ticket reselling
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