Scalpers Work With Hackers to Liberate Ticketmaster's ‘Non-Transferable’ Tickets
Scalpers Work With Hackers to Liberate Ticketmaster's ‘Non-Transferable’ Tickets
Scalpers have reverse-engineered how Ticketmaster creates tickets, and are now generating and selling them on their own parallel infrastructure.
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?
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A lot of venues require events to use ticketmaster so the artists often have no choice
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they. could. choose. not. to. play. the. venues.
And how will they earn a living? Record, radio, and streaming pays almost nothing. Live performance is how most make their living.
Going ticketmaster-less for a tour has been tried before by a huge name at the time Pearl Jam. This was almost 30 years ago now. It just wasn't viable playing the few venues that could accept ticketmaster-less shows.
Here's part of that history:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-67440/
It still makes me angry that the whole music industry left Pearl Jam out to dry on this. Had even half the artist touring joined in solidarity with Pearl Jam it would probably be a much better market for concert goers these days.
It wasn't only the music industry. The Department of Justice ruling kneecapped Pearl Jam's efforts of reform giving Ticketmaster the foundation to build the even larger empire it has today.
You must starve for your ethics obviously \s
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yes, dummy
Oh wow. I didn't realize you're not able to have an adult conversation. This is helpful information.
they could take the year off, they could only play smaller venues, or even larger ones that don’t use tickemaster.
I addressed that already, but I see my mistake wasn't using your chosen method of communication. Let me try again:
Pearl. Jam. tried. that. and. there. aren't. enough. ticketmaster-less. venues. available. that. are. large. enough. to. cover. the. costs. of. a. nation. wide. tour.
the artists are the talent
except. the. biggest. stars. the. talent. is. paid. very. little. and. has. very. little. control. over. their. performance. choices. and. they. need. to. feed. themselves. as. music. is. their. livelihood.
this is not fucking rocket science
This is business and law, and its far closer to rocket science than your elementary understanding makes it out to be. Its one thing to be ignorant of the way things work. Its yet another to stand proudly and proclaiming you don't care about being ignorant.
the fault usurious ticketmaster fees falls squarely on the shoulders and in the fault of the artists allow them to pimp their tickets.
I would think that would fall on...you know, maybe the company imposing the fees, or the government and regulatory environment that allows it to continue to go on...but you know what? You're right; the individual artists are to blame. /s
Why don't the artists just make their own venues and start their own Ticketmaster competitor?! Surely they got into music not to try to express themselves, create art, maybe get famous, and make a living! They got into it to become venue builders, show organizers, and to be embroiled in the politics of the music industry. /s
The artist does have a choice in that they can play at a live nation venue and work through Ticketmaster, or they can find a new career because live nation has a monopoly on venues as well as ticketing. So in reality the only artists that have a choice are the Taylor Swifts that are essentially market makers, and the nobodies that aren't selling tickets anywhere but at the door anyway.
That's the nature of monopolies. Yes, if all artists banded (no pun intended) together and told live nation to fuck off, it would work, but getting everyone to do it won't ever happen. So unfortunately, you have to play the game or get out. Ideally, existing laws would prevent this from happening, but our law makers and enforcers are a bunch of money hungry, corporate sluts, so we end up with this broken system.
no pun intended
None taken.
they're the talent people are paying for
Kinda naïve view...
Artists that have to work hard are not really free. They need every stage where they can get on.
Artists that are actually rich cannot make such a decision just for themselves. There is a whole company of people around them. They create and perform their shows together.
Sure, they can choose to get paid or not.
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Yes, they can choose to either NOT be a professional artist, or to work with Live Nation and Ticket Master.
It's one, or the other.
Having a choice isn't much of a choice when it's a monopoly.
Also here's some inside baseball about the Dimension 20 / Ticketmaster nonsense that happened earlier this year
It was also cheaper 30 years ago to pay everyone involved in that band's tour, which all comes out of the artist's pot of money. So a smaller venue means less for artists and the crews supporting them.
So, while doing this now sounds great, that would mean your either continuing to pay a road crew no longer needed for these much smaller tours/venues, or laying these people off (when some of these people will have been part of these crews for the bands touring lifetime).
Monopolies are the opposite of choice.
Artists don't have enough money in the bank to enact what would basically be a strike. If they stopped playing Ticketmaster venues, they'd basically stop playing actual venues entirely. They'd have to play tiny independent venues, where they'd end up losing money, because they physically can't sell enough tickets to cover the cost of time, travel, paying roadies, etc. Or, the ticket prices would be inaccessibly high.
The problem with live shows is directly attributable to the effective monopoly that Ticketmaster has, allowing them to fuck over artists and venues equally.
The very few artists who do, and have the creative freedom to so do are probably the only ones who could get away with this. Convention Centers don't seem to have the same density of existing Ticketmaster relationships, and while they'd have to pay to bring in seating at some, I bet they could do it for something similar to Ticketmaster's middleman fees.
I'm not sure the difference between costs for concert venues and convention centers, but if it's anywhere near comparable, it could be feasible.