StubHub Says Artists, Venues, Fans – Not Scalpers – Inflate Ticket Prices

Point 1) As you very well know. The attempted resale of a ticket bought from a primary agent renders the ticket void under the terms of the contract which forbids resale without written authorisation. (A performance is also copyrighted therefore written authorisation is always needed) Selling a void ticket and implying it is valid is fraud.

Of course you are correct to say it is not all illegal. Only the resale of tickets bought from a primary agent is illegal. That accounts for the vast majority of tickets available via the secondary market.

Point 2) Rubbish. Name one promoter in this country who is in favour of the secondary market. It's one of the many lies touted by the secondary market. Along with customers push up the prices, we're here to protect customers and we are in collaboration with COE. The CPA is 100% in favour of banning a secondary market.

As for Viagogo, they've already appealed and lost. What higher court is there? The names and addresses of those sellers of RFU tickets should have been on the website at the time of sale under at least two UK laws. (The resale of tickets act and the consumer protection from unfair trading regulations)

It is a free market. It allows the owner of a product to dictate that resale is forbidden. If you are 100% agains illegal activity then you are advocating that purchasers cannot resell without written authorisation. If someone has a ticket they want to resell they need to get permission. If someone buys a ticket from a primary agent with the intention of reselling without authorisation then they are breaking the law. That scenario is applicable to nearly every single ticket on the secondary market so you cannot possibly support it if you really are against illegal activity.

Agree. But what do you do if you see someone breaking into your house? Do you let them? After all, if you chase them away they'll only rob someone else.

I am not going to go through all this nonsense about copyright etc again.  Suggest you take advise from a barrister.

The date for Viagogo's latest appeal in the Supreme Court was set for 14/06/12.  I am guessing it has been delayed.

Promoters not in favour of the secondary market?  I take it that you didn't see the Dispatches programme on Channel 4 a few months ago.

If somebody tried to break into my house but didn't suceed because of my state-of-the-art security it wouldn't stop them trying to break into somebody else's house.  So yes, in a sense I do chase them away because I would prefer them to rob someone else instead of me.

And if everyone's home was an impregnable fortress do you think there would be less criminals around?  No, they would turn their attention to another branch of thieving.

Sorry to disagree on this but the overwhelming majority of ticket frauds are pulled by well known ticket touts

Not criminals with no connections to touting jumping on the bandwagon

They are simply ticket touts who commit criminal offences

The good news is that some touts NOT involved in criminality have been working with Police and other agencies for a long time now, in order to stop these frauds and get the scumbags prosecuted

Copyright was just one aspect. A minor one but if you think the Berne convention is nonsense who am I to disagree? I take it all the other points I raised are valid in your opinion. After all, if you are in favour of the free market, then you must understand that it is rooted in 'freedom of contract'. If you sign a contract that says this ticket is not for resale without the written authorisation of the promoter and you ignore it, then you are in breach. If you buy from a primary,  the contract states that resale renders the ticket void, so, resale of the ticket without mentioning that it is no longer valid for entry is fraud.

You cannot defend fraud in one sentence and say you are 100% against illegal activity in another. You insult your own intelligence by doing so.

I did watch the dispatches prog. Didn't see any promoters on there. I believe SJM tried to reduce prices via supply with limited success and I believe Festival Republic attempted to work with them. Neither is in favour of a secondary market. FR has very publicly disclaimed them. The directors of both companies have been actively trying to get secondary market  resales banned for years. When those tickets were on sale from promoters the terms and conditions (dictated by the promoters) was that resale was banned.

Like I said. Name one promoter who is in favour of the existence of the secondary market.

@Arkley Ali. Totally in agreement. Criminals will always be criminals unless something is done to stop them.

Any company which is set up to cheat people by promising them non-existent tickets is run by confidence tricksters.

I don't care if they were tickets touts, brain surgeons or Mother Teresa in a former life - they are now criminals.

Totally ill-advised. Think SJM and Festival Republic would agree with hindsight.
The real point was that 2 promoters attempting to find a way forwards via collaboration as advised by the government is being painted as Promoters (in general) supplying tickets to platforms to line their own pockets.

When someone makes claims like that they need to supply names because I personally don't know a single promoter who doesn't want resales banned. SJM's MD and Festival Republic are both part of the campaign to rid the industry of profiteers.

Agreed, the total number of tickets given to the tout platforms was a drop in the ocean compared to the total number put on sale per annum by the promoters

And hindsight in retrospect is like 20/20 vision, always perfect!
 

The Concert Promoter’s Association, whose members include Live Nation, SJM and Metropolis Music, told programme makers that promoters putting tickets onto the secondary market brought prices down, while ensuring that some tickets in the resell market were genuine.

It said: "In this respect the secondary market is effectively being used as a premium price primary market for those fans who wish to use it for convenience."

It added that fans would "be happier that the premium went to the artist via the promoter rather than went to a tout."

Live Nation, SJM, Metropolis Music and Phil Macintyre Entertainment declined Event's request to comment further today.

This is what the CPA had to say after the "Dispatches" programme. Doesn't sound to me that they are against secondary selling or have been coerced into using it by the government.

As I said: Tickets were put on the platforms in an attempt to bring down prices. That was not secondary selling. We agree that it was ill-advised and you have confirmed that by misreading what was an attempt to curtail profiteering as support for the secondaries.  (and remember this only happened after they had approached the Govt to intervene and  the govt had refused to help)

The following is an extract from the CPA's standard terms to be used by all their members?

You may not re-sell or transfer a Ticket if you are selling or transferring the Ticket in the course of business.  You are deemed to be selling or transferring in the course of business where we reasonably believe you to be doing so.

Circumstances where We may consider that a Ticket is being resold in the course of business include:

1) Where a Ticket is sold or advertised for sale for profit (as defined below) through any medium not authorised by Us, including through unauthorised online auction or other websites.  ...............

...............Re-selling a Ticket for profit means any re-sale that seeks a price that is higher than the face value of the ticket and the relevant booking fee and/or handling fee (if any) that You paid for the Ticket.  

Any Ticket obtained in breach of these Terms and Conditions shall be void and all, rights conferred or evidenced by such Ticket shall be void. Any person seeking to use such a void Ticket in order to gain or provide entry to an Event may be considered to be a trespasser and may be liable to be ejected and liable to legal action.

Void Tickets are non-refundable.

Does a total ban on reselling for profit sound like they are against secondary sales to you? It does to me.

"As I said: Tickets were put on the platforms in an attempt to bring down prices. That was not secondary selling. We agree that it was ill-advised and you have confirmed that by misreading what was an attempt to curtail profiteering as support for the secondaries. (and remember this only happened after they had approached the Govt to intervene and the govt had refused to help)"

I cannot for the life of me see how putting tickets for sale at an inflated price on a secondary site would bring down prices.

Just read the full article and am not convinced one iota by CPA's excuses. They wanted to claw back some of the lost revenue. Excuse me? It doesn't matter if a ticket has been sold to a concert-goer or to a tout - once the ticket has been sold for the first time everyone concerned (promoter, artist, etc) will have got their money. They did it because the government refused to help? They actually sold tickets at a premium on a secondary site because the government refused to help - doesn't make sense. It wasn't so long ago that CPA had their own secondary selling site (officialticketsonline.com).  Presume they closed down the operation because it didn't make any money.

Let me help: If you put bananas on sale for £1 each and I put them on sale for 50p you have to reduce yours to 50p to sell them.

or........... you can buy them all off me for 50p and resell them for £1.50 (which is what happened)

www.officialticketsonline.com, is a New York based ticket scam site. You're talking about OfficialBoxOffice.com.

Announcing it in 2009, Rob Ballantine, CPA spokesperson said:

"The CPA have campaigned on behalf of music fans to try and get the government to outlaw ticket touting. The government have refused to do this, so the secondary market is here to stay. We are powerless to police this as it is rife with fraud and week-after-week fans are being ripped off by purchasing fraudulent tickets. We are therefore launching a site that will have the most robust system possible to minimise the chance of fans buying non-existent or misrepresented tickets."

Ballantine added that the site is not looking to make money (the CPA is a not for profit association).

It didn't last long. Hardly surprising. Would resellers really use a site run by people dedicated to outlawing resales? Bit like asking burglars to report their break-ins to the police.