Can A Radio Station Give Away Tickets To A Football Game? The Eagles Say No...

from the right-of-first-sale dept

We've noted the trend of trying to cut down on scalping by using e-tickets to stop the transfer of tickets, but it appears that the Philadelphia Eagles football team also is trying to stop radio stations from doing promotional giveaways. The team has sued the owner of the radio station, saying that the terms on the back of the ticket forbid the use of the tickets for commercial purposes -- such as contests -- and also that the station is violating the Eagles' trademarks in naming them around the ticket giveaway promotion. This raises a bunch of questions about the right of first sale on a ticket. While the stadium may have the right to forbid entry to anyone, it seems like that would be a dumb move on the team's part. My guess is that the team's main concern is that it only wants partner (i.e., those who paid a ton for broadcast rights) radio stations to give away tickets -- but that doesn't mean there's a legal right there. If the tickets were legitimately bought, why shouldn't the station be able to sell them or give them away? And, considering that the radio station was accurately describing the team when using the name, that shouldn't be a trademark violation.

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Ticketmaster Trying To Cut Down On Scalpers... Or Increase Fee Collection For Itself?

from the some-good,-some-bad dept

Earlier this year, we had covered the news that Ticketmaster was pushing paperless tickets as a way to cut down on scalping, and now that story seems to be getting much wider coverage. The idea is that if you buy a ticket, you have to be the one to show up, with an ID and the credit card you used, in order to attend. Ticketmaster will allow you to transfer... but it can limit the price of a transfer and charge you a fee for the transfer. That makes it seem like this is a lot more about collecting more fees from the secondary market, than really cutting down on scalping. Not to mention that it seems likely to cause problems. How do you handle buying tickets for someone else as a gift? Under this system, you'd need to buy... and then "transfer" at a fee. And what if you really can't go, but the ticket has already been transferred once (a limit they set on the system). Finally, does it really make sense to block out basic market mechanisms? I recognize that there's an issue of scalpers buying up huge blocks of tickets, but there are better mechanisms to deal with that, that don't involve limiting what legitimate purchasers can do with their tickets.

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StubHub Says Ticket Resales Are Booming, Thanks To Lower Prices

from the hot-tickets dept

Online ticket reseller StubHub says that sales revenues and volume were up significantly in the first quarter, as secondary ticket prices fell and lured in more buyers. The head of the company says he wishes he could have some control over the prices and keep them down so the volume (which drives StubHub's revenues) stays high, but the company really has no way to control that, since each individual seller that uses its platform will try to push the price as high as they can. In any case, Stubhub's booming business helps explain why Ticketmaster is trying to grow its own resale business, grabbing a cut from the original sale, and then the resale too. On a related note, the StubHub CEO says he's not concerned about Ticketmaster's increasing use of paperless tickets as a means to thwart scalpers: "There are ways that brokers can provide these tickets. They're not elegant. They don't provide a great experience to the fan... Where there's a will there’s a way, and there are both interested sellers and interested buyers." Inevitably, resellers will find a way around the system -- but somehow, as long as Ticketmaster finds a new revenue stream coming from it, it's hard to imagine the company will mind too much.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Ticketmaster Takes Another Stab At Shutting Down Scalpers With Paperless Tickets

from the two-sets-of-rules dept

When it's not been busy trying to get into the scalping business itself, Ticketmaster has been trying to push scalpers aside. It claims it does this for altruistic reasons, but those claims generally fall on deaf ears, with many people believing it's simply trying to capture the scalpers' revenues. It's escalating the battle now by expanding its use of paperless tickets for concerts, and will use them for the upcoming Miley Cyrus tour, after an earlier series of shows sparked a flurry of complaints about scalpers. Ticketmaster has been testing the program for a little while, and trying to sell it as a convenient solution: instead of getting a paper ticket for a show, buyers don't receive one before the show, and instead must present the credit card they used to purchase their seats to get in. On its surface, this seems like a fairly effective way of cutting out scalpers by making their transactions with their customers much more difficult. But it's still not clear why Ticketmaster sees such a need to interfere with the market -- beyond its own self-interest, of course. It's hard to imagine that Ticketmaster really cares that scalping goes on, except for the fact that it's not making any money from it.

One inevitable (and legitimate) complaint about this system is that it not only takes out scalpers, but other secondary transactions, too. Want to buy tickets as a gift, or for your kid? You'll have to take the recipient to the show and go up to the gate with them. Buy tickets for yourself, but then can't go to the show and want to give them to a friend? You're out of luck, unless you and your credit card can get there (and, of course, there are no refunds). It seems likely that Ticketmaster will have to do something to rectify this, particularly given the political scrutiny they've attracted lately, and the solution seems obvious: Ticketmaster sets up a secondary market that lets people resell their tickets and reassigns them to a new credit-card holder (taking a cut for all the hard work, of course). The company has been growing its reseller business, in particular making efforts to become the "official fan resale" partner of various sports leagues and teams, and it's hard to see it not using paperless tickets as a way to expand this business. Ticketmaster hates scalping -- unless it's the one doing the reselling. But if it wants to benefit from the free market, the market should really be free, and not one established and controlled by Ticketmaster.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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SF Giants Test Dynamic Ticket Pricing

from the one-day-sale dept

The San Francisco Giants are experimenting with software that dynamically prices baseball tickets, adjusting prices based on demand, weather, and even other factors like who's scheduled to pitch on a particular day. Many teams already charge different prices for seats based on the opponent or other factors, but the Giants are trying to manage ticket revenue much like airlines and hotels price their products: charging a premium for in-demand seats, but lowering prices when necessary in an attempt to fill available space. For instance, in a recent series against the Mets, some bleacher seats that regularly go for $17 each varied in price from $15 to $33, depending on the weather and pitching matchups. So far, the Giants are testing the system on just 2,000 outfield seats in their 41,000-seat stadium, wary of upsetting season-ticket holders by offering similar seats to other buyers at lower prices. They say so far, they've increased sales in those seats by 17 percent over last year, but it's too early to tell if that's solely because of the pricing system. On one hand, it's easy to see some people getting upset by the system, but on the other, a case can be made that the seats offer different levels of value on different days, and should be priced accordingly. It's essentially the same system, just a little more scientific, as that used by scalpers, and they find no shortage of willing buyers. If the Giants have a lot of success with their efforts, look for similar systems to quickly catch on with other sports teams.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Schumer Tries To Force Scalpers To Register; Limit How They Buy And Sell Tickets

from the is-this-needed? dept

There's been plenty of complaining about how ticket scalpers for various concerts and sporting events have been scooping up all of the tickets for events and making it more expensive for fans to get those tickets. Of course, in many cases, companies like TicketMaster and the musicians themselves are in on the deal, pretending to offer "scalped" tickets that they're really selling themselves. With so much talk about this issue, you knew it was only a matter of time until some grandstanding politician got involved. In this case, it's New York's Chuck Schumer, who has introduced new legislation to try to limit ticket reselling (thanks to Eric Goldman for sending this over). It will require ticket resellers to "register" with the FTC, and then such official resellers will only be allowed to get tickets two days after the tickets go on sale.

It's difficult to see what good this does, other than create a bigger bureaucratic mess. If you don't think that the ticket resellers will figure out workarounds, you haven't been paying much attention over the past few years. Besides, the very fact that Ticketmaster thinks this is a good law is a pretty damning sign that it's not doing much to solve the problem, but is really designed to help Ticketmaster make more money.

It's still difficult to see why these issues can't be solved effectively without legislation. Bands can offer early tickets through fan clubs or mailing lists, or use other tools to make sure fans get tickets at lower prices. Besides, if the demand really is that high for certain tickets, what's wrong with letting the market determine that?

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Vancouver Olympics Using Copyright Law (Rather Than Scalping Laws) To Ban Ticket Reselling

from the misuse-of-copyright dept

Michael_S points us to the news that the Vancouver Olympics -- no stranger to massive abuse of intellectual property law -- is now using copyright law to prevent ticket resales. Now, lots of places around the world have anti-scalping laws that forbid reselling of event tickets (or reselling them above a certain price). Vancouver, however, does not have any such law. No problem for the Olympics folks... they're using the special copyright they were granted on a whole host of common terms, including "Vancouver 2010" to sue resellers offering the tickets. Obviously, that's got nothing to do with the purpose of copyright law, but when you grant silly monopolies, don't be surprised when they're abused.

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Jay Leno Freaks Out That The Unemployed Might Prefer Money Over Free Leno Tickets

from the let's-explain-the-free-market... dept

Nearly four years ago, we wrote about Bob Geldof's odd freak-out against eBay when it was discovered that ticketholders to his LiveAid event were selling the tickets on eBay. This was silly for a variety of reasons -- including the misdirected anger at eBay. But, more importantly, we couldn't figure out who this was harming, at all. Geldof had chosen to give out the tickets for free -- and some people preferred to have money rather than the tickets. Others would get the tickets they valued more. Everyone's better off. Where's the problem?

Apparently, Jay Leno needs that same lesson, and economist Greg Mankiw is explaining it to him. Leno went to Michigan and gave out free tickets to unemployed workers in the state -- and then complained when people put the tickets up for sale on eBay. Remember, these are unemployed people. For many of them, do you think they'd prefer some extra cash or the opportunity to see Leno live? Hell, do you think they'd be better off with cash or the free trip to Leno? Obviously, some greatly prefer the cash -- and it actually seems quite mean of Leno to try to deny them that cash by demanding that eBay take down the auctions.

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Ticketmaster Collaborates With Artists And Promoters To Shove Scalpers Aside

from the nothing-at-face-value dept

Ticketmaster is the sort of company that lots of people love to hate. It's long been dogged by complaints that it is anti-competitive -- complaints which have gathered pace with its recent move to merge with Live Nation. The company has done plenty of things to try to drive scalpers out of business before, in hopes of sucking up their profit margins, and its latest move will further endear itself to fans. The WSJ reports that Ticketmaster is collaborating with artists and concert promoters to sell premium-priced tickets to shows on its TicketExchange site, and making them look as if they're being sold by fans. Trent Reznor explains the situation in the eminently reasonable way we've come to expect, saying that artists know they could charge much higher prices to some of their fans, but they "don't want to come off as greedy pricks asking that much, even though the market says its value is that high." So instead, they feed them to the reseller market, or as in this case, become the reseller themselves, but obfuscate that fact.

Ticketmaster execs decry the scalper market, and claim it's not fair to artists, who don't get any of the scalper's profits; under the TicketExchange deals, it divides the revenues with artists and concert promoters. This is all pretty bizarre: if Ticketmaster wants to jack up ticket prices, it seems like it would just raise them upfront. It's also not clear why the company thinks that it's abhorrent for scalpers to charge consumers high prices, but it's perfectly okay for Ticketmaster to charge them prices over the tickets' face value. This news will hardly endear the company further to consumers, and probably won't help it with government regulators, either.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Another YouTube Speeder Found Not Guilty Due To Lack Of Evidence

from the be-careful-when-you-speed-and-youtube dept

It seems that it's becoming somewhat common for police to scour YouTube for videos of people filming themselves speeding. However, at the same time, we're seeing at least a few of the tickets handed out for such YouTube speeding thrown out. The latest is over in the UK, where a guy charged with speeding due to a YouTube video has been found not guilty because there's not enough evidence that he was the one actually driving the car -- or that the car was really traveling at the speed shown on the speedometer. This doesn't mean that folks posting their speeding videos on YouTube won't still be fined, but it appears that (at least in the UK) courts are making sure that there's enough actual evidence there to make the fines stick.

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Craigslist Forced To Cough Up Name Of Oscars Ticket Seller To The Movie Industry

from the but-why? dept

Apparently, the Motion Picture Academy, the folks who put on the Oscars (also known as "The Academy Awards"), say that the tickets to that event are non-transferable. That's fine. It's their event, they can set up whatever rules they want. However, where it gets strange, is that they are now suing a bunch of folks who tried to sell their tickets online, and even got a judge to force Craigslist to reveal the name of a seller in order to sue him.

So, here's my confusion: if the tickets are non-transferable, why not just check IDs at the door and not let those who were not given tickets?

As for forcing Craigslist to reveal the name of the seller, why is that allowed? The Academy can have whatever rules it wants in terms of letting in or not letting in people, but what law was broken by the seller, and what makes it so that Craigslist should be forced to give up the name of an anonymous seller? All the Academy had to do was not let the person in the door, but apparently it chose not to run things that way. But that's the Academy's choice, not a legal issue the requires revealing the name of an anonymous seller.

Furthermore, the Academy's explanation for this also seems ridiculous: "If you don't know who's inside the theater, it's very difficult to provide security." Really? Most places that provide security don't know the names of everyone who's there and they seem to do just fine. And, again, if knowing who's in there is such a big deal, then why not identify them as they enter, and verify that they're supposed to be there? None of that would then involve lawsuits. But, then again, this is the movie industry, which has shown a penchant for lawsuits over actually thinking things through and taking the easier path.

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UK Politicians Support Having Musicians Paid Multiple Times If Tix Are Resold

from the first-sale-is-for-suckers dept

A month ago, we noted that the managers of some well-known bands were pushing for a rule that would require anyone reselling concert tickets to contribute some of their profits back to the musician. It's difficult to see how this is reasonable. If anything it sounds like double dipping. In a normal transaction, after you've sold something, you no longer have a right to have any say over what the buyer does with his purchase. If he sells it for more money, that's his to keep. That certainly seems fair to everyone. What is clouding this when it comes to ticket sales is that professional ticket resellers have been monopolizing the ticket business, figuring out ways (sometimes using questionable means) to buy up all hot tickets within seconds of them going on sale. They then quickly turn around and resell them, sometimes at greatly inflated prices. This is upsetting many fans for completely understandable reasons -- and so the government is trying to figure out what to do about these "touts" (which in the US we call "scalpers").

The recommended policy starts off well by saying it's not a good idea to ban ticket sales, but then supports requiring any resale to kick back some of the profit to the musician or sports team. That actually seems like the worst of all world's situation. That's unlikely to stop ticket resales and jacked up prices, and it actually rewards the artists for getting the tickets into the hands of resellers. It gives those performers a chance to double dip on much higher ticket sale prices, while allowing them to shrug and say that they really priced them at an affordable level. There are ways to deal with the issues raised by ticket resales, none of which require government intervention -- but it's difficult to see how the proposed solution does anything at all to help, while doing plenty to eat away at the concept of having ownership of a product you actually bought.

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New England Patriots Spying On Ticket Resales; Court Forces Stubhub To Hand Over Ticket Seller Names

from the privacy?-schmivacy dept

We've heard plenty of stories about organizations trying to ban the resale of tickets to events. It seems a bit silly to tell someone who bought a ticket to a concert or a sporting event that they're not allowed to resell it, but apparently some event organizers feel differently -- especially when the tickets are sold at greater than face value. The New England Patriots apparently are so adamant that people shouldn't be reselling their tickets for profit that they've convinced a court to force ticket resale marketplace StubHub to hand over the names of everyone who resold Patriots tickets for above face value. This seems like a rather large privacy violation -- and it clearly violates Stubhub's own terms of service (which is why the company fought it in court). You could understand being forced to turn over such information in a criminal lawsuit, but this is the New England Patriots requesting and getting the private info of sellers. For a team that just got into some trouble for spying on opposing teams, spying on their fans' private transactions doesn't seem like a step forward.

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