03/01/2018
Ticket touts to be banned from using ‘bots’ to bulk buy (UK)
New legislation will ban ticket touts from using automated software to dodge security measures and buy more tickets than events organisers allow so they can sell them on at hugely inflated prices – as a recent example, tickets for the London musical ‘Hamilton’ were advertised at £6,000 on the secondary ticket market.
A provision in the Digital Economy Act 2017 is enabling the creation of a new criminal offence set out in the draft ‘The Breaching Limits on Ticket Sales Regulations 2017’.
Touts who breach the law will face an unlimited fine and the government has already taken an important step towards implementing the new regime by notifying the European Commission of its plans to take the proposals forward.
Other developments in what will hopefully be a miserable year for the ticket touts include
- The ‘Digital Economy Act 2017’ imposing additional requirements on ticket sellers to provide a unique ticket number where one was originally given, and revised Consumer Rights Act guidance clarifying the information that should be provided on sale restrictions when re-selling tickets.
- The eCrime unit of National Trading Standards has raided properties across the UK, made 4 arrests and seized a range of equipment in the course of on-going investigations into secondary ticket markets.
- The Competition and Markets Authority has gathered evidence of potential breaches of the law and required websites to take appropriate action during an in-depth market investigation (‘CMA takes action against secondary ticketing sites (UK)’, CPA News, 30 November 2017).
The private sector has also taken action on its own account to back up government initiatives
- a British firm, ‘Dice.fm’, is using innovative mobile technology to beat the touts by locking tickets to user accounts
- Adele and Ed Sheeran are among star UK perfomers, who have partnered with sites such as ‘twickets.live’ which prohibit ticket resales
- a Dutch start-up, ‘guts.tickets’, is using Blockchain technology to make it impossible to re-sell tickets at a higher price in the UK
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