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Industry News

Ticketmaster opposes Maryland bill to open up reselling

Maryland lawmakers will tomorrow (Wednesday) begin to debate a bill that could prohibit operators from putting restrictions on reselling event tickets within the US state.

Under current laws, the primary seller of tickets can impose restrictions on reselling or giving away tickets.

The proposed legislation has pitted primary seller Ticketmaster against competitors such as ticket resale website StubHub, in which both sides argue the consumer is at the forefront of its business model.

Ticketmaster allows some tickets to be resold, but only through a secondary market owned by the company. For other events, tickets can be redeemed at venues only by showing the buyer’s credit card or some other identification, making it impossible to freely sell or give away those tickets.

Ticketmaster and some concert venues, which are against the bill, claim they want to protect fans from scalpers using ticket bots, with the vendor recently discussing technological advances to this end.

Meanwhile, supporters of the proposed legislation say they are defending the rights of ticket buyers to sell or give away their own property.

Maryland senator Brian Feldman said the legislation would force a seller such as Ticketmaster to offer non-restricted tickets to events. That would allow buyers resell tickets on such outlets as StubHub.

“Most Marylanders, I believe, think they have a property right to that ticket and they have the … freedom to transfer that ticket if they can’t make the event,” said Senator Feldman, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Ticketmaster said the legislation would open the door to scalping. However, one of the last bills signed by President Barack Obama created a federal prohibition on the use of bots to acquire hordes of tickets. For this reason, many members of the Maryland legislature say Ticketmaster’s case is no longer valid.

Image: Josh Sorenson

Modification: Ticketmaster logo added