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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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
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPREpJjss/
Sure, they can choose to get paid or not.
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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).
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/
You must starve for your ethics obviously \s
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Oh wow. I didn’t realize you’re not able to have an adult conversation. This is helpful information.
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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.