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?
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.