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Congress Passes BOTS Act To Ban Ticket-Buying Software (arstechnica.com)
Congress passed a bill yesterday that will make it illegal for people to use software bots to buy concert tickets. Ars Technica reports: The Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act makes it illegal to bypass any computer security system designed to limit ticket sales to concerts, Broadway musicals, and other public events with a capacity of more than 200 persons. Violations will be treated as "unfair or deceptive acts" and can be prosecuted by the Federal Trade Commission or the states. The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent last week, and the House of Representatives voted yesterday to pass it as well. It now proceeds to President Barack Obama for his signature. Computer programs that automatically buy tickets have been a frustration for the concert industry and fans for a few years now. The issue had wide exposure after a 2013 New York Times story on the issue. Earlier this year, the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman completed an investigation into bots. The New York AG's ticket sales report (PDF) found that the tens of thousands of tickets snatched up by bots were marked up by an average of 49 percent.
other than that it is done by broker bots instead of scalper bots?
Is this the type of an issue you are thinking about when you cast your vote? Who out there is thinking: "I really need the government to exist so that it could set up laws to prevent people from buying concert tickets with bots"?
You can't handle the truth.
Free market dictates that ticket companies that can't protect themselves from bots should go out of business and be replaced by ones that can. This is major government overreach. TRUMP!
Good point. High Frequency Trading should be treated the same way. It won't be. But it should be.
The only reason this problem exists is because people will pay more than the face value for tickets. If everyone just said no these jerks would get stuck with all those tickets and not be able to recoup their costs and they'd go away on their own. No government intervention required. In fact, I'd love to see empty venues for a few shows while these assholes take a bath.
Very-high-demand events should sell tickets by dutch auction.
At least this way, the promoters and others running the event - who are likely to plow some of their profits back into the business - keep most of "true" value of the ticket, not the scalpers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I think we should look ahead to the day when anyone trying to game a stock market is taken outside, stripped naked, and their testicles are plugged into a car battery, but that's just me.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Does Congress not have more important things to do than meddle in people buying and reselling products?
Tickets are scarce. Yesterday they were allocated to people with the most money. Today they're allocated to people with enough free time to hit F5 on the web site the day they go on sale.
People buy and mark up products all the time (that's what wholesalers, distributors, and retailers do all day). Why should we consider tickets any different? If you don't like markup going to resellers instead of artists, tell the artists to have more shows or set the initial price higher. It's a problem the artists and venues could solve all by themselves if they wanted to.
A possible solution is to not ban sales to bots per-se, but instead verify that the identity of the person redeeming the ticket at the door is the same as the person who purchased the ticket (via verifying CC details, or even something as basic as their name).
If tickets have conditions on them that prevent their usage by anyone other than the person who originally bought them, then there can be no market for resold tickets. Let the scalpers buy as many tickets as they want, but eliminate the market for them to be resold.
Ticket Australia now state as part of their conditions of sale "This ticket may not, without the prior written consent of Ticketek or the Seller, be resold at a premium or used for advertising, promotion or other commercial purposes (including competitions and trade promotions) or to enhance the demand for other goods or services. If a ticket is sold or used in breach of this condition, the bearer of the ticket will be refused admission."
If you knowingly purchase a scalped ticket, you're taking a huge risk that you won't get in to the event.
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If the tickets are being sold for $60, but people are willing to pay $150, then why aren't they offered first for $150? I see the big problem being the middlemen sucking money out without adding value. Let the entertainers get that money.
If I were in charge of tickets for something like a pro sports team, the system I would use would be to put the tickets on sale at some ridiculous price, and announce that the price would drop 1% every four hours, or something like that. Then if you want the perfect seats and don't care that they're $1000, you can get your pick on the first day. Wait a few weeks, and they're $500. Wait until the day of the game, and anything left is $20. There's no need to set different prices on the better seats--they will sell earlier at a higher price.
A system like that would make scalping at a profit nearly impossible.
Oh would you shove it with the "liberals" nonsense. Conservatives game the government as much or more, you're just biased against noticing it.
The truth is that humans will game any system we design.
The only "liquidity" that HFT "enhances" is in the bank account of the person controlling the software. It really is parasitic. It feeds off the system without adding anything to it. If I put in an order for a stock at $3 per share and some computer sitting between my broker and the exchange notices that the price is now $2.99 per share, and they buy the shares at $2.99 in order to sell to me at $3, that doesn't do anything except give money to the person who paid however much was required to have only a 3-meter cable between their computer and the trading computer. The people benefiting from the system have a wide range of words that they use to try to explain why it's actually a good thing that they're getting paid for not doing anything, but the reality is that the money belongs in the hands of the seller.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black