After Ticketmaster failed to sell tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Stadium tour earlier this month, the company blamed “bot attacks” and fans for the meltdown.
Now members of Congress are asking the FTC if it plans to enforce a 2016 law designed to combat such “attacks.”
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connection), the ranking member and chair of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security respectively, He wrote a letter on Monday to the Federal Trade Commission He asks if the commission will invoke the Best Online Ticket Sales Act, or the BOTS Act.
Signed into law in 2016, and Potts Law It gives the government the power to crack down on those who abuse bots — software applications programmed to run automated tasks over the Internet — to buy large amounts of tickets for profit. These brokers often run ticket bots that automatically suck up huge swaths of tickets as soon as they go on sale.
These tickets are then sold on third party websites, often at much higher prices. The law prohibits the resale of tickets purchased using bots, and people who illegally sell tickets face a $16,000 fine.
“While bots may not be the sole cause of these problems, which Congress assesses, fighting bots is an important step in reducing consumer costs in the online ticketing industry,” Blackburn and Blumenthal wrote.
Peter Kaplan, a FTC spokesman, said the agency had received the letter but declined to comment further.
When Ticketmaster announced it had canceled ticket sales for Swift’s concerts to the public after a series of pre-sales, it blamed “the staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes,” saying it “led to unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in A total of 3.5 billion system requests – 4 times the previous peak.
While the letter referred specifically to the Ticketmaster Swift debacle, the senators also pointed to other recent examples, such as consumers trying to buy tickets to see Bob Dylan perform in Nashville last March, only to be told the tickets in their cart weren’t counting. present. The message also referred to a separate incident where 22,000 fans signed up to buy Blake Shelton tickets but only a few hundred people walked out with them.
The letter goes on to point out the wild profit margins on third-party sites with some listings as high as $1,000 for a Bruce Springsteen concert and $40,000 to see Adele.
“Preventing this kind of harm to consumers is exactly why Congress chose to enact the BOTS Act six years ago and why we both chose to sponsor it,” the letter read.
The FTC has cracked down on individuals who use bots in the past. This past January, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it planned to issue a $31 million fine against three New York ticket brokers who the commission accused of using bots to purchase tens of thousands of tickets for concerts and sporting events, then making millions by reselling them. them to the masses at higher prices.
The letter acknowledged the January case, which was the first use of the BOTS law, but asked the FTC why it had not done more to enforce the law against other potential cases of bots use.
Swift’s fiasco also drew criticism of Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s largest concert promoter. The two companies merged in 2010, raising concerns that the resulting company would have stranglehold on ticket sales and other parts of the music business.
Ticketmaster has long faced criticism for the fees it charges consumers, and there has been political pressure on antitrust officials to get involved.
Last week, other members of Congress — Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), longtime critic of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — announced that they would Hold a hearing on the impact of Ticketmaster’s dominant hold on the ticketing industry and “how consolidation into the live entertainment industry and the ticketing industry is hurting customers and artists alike.”
“When there is no competition to incentivize better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences,” Klobuchar said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) chirp Earlier this month you think the company needs to be dismantled.
Department of Justice antitrust investigation into Live Nation Entertainment It has been announced earlier this month. It seeks to determine whether Live Nation has abused its power over the live music industry.
In 2019, the Department of Justice was preparing for a long legal battle against Live Nation over allegations that Forced concert venues To work with the Ticketmaster division.
Long live the nation in which he settled Agree to extend some conditions from its 2010 merger that was supposed to ensure fair competition in the ticket market and prevent Live Nation from retaliating against venue owners who decided to defect to competitors.