Scalpers have reverse-engineered how Ticketmaster creates tickets, and are now generating and selling them on their own parallel infrastructure.

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?

    • @[email protected]English
      19•4 months ago

      I’d rather be able to sell my ticket if I can’t go for at least face value. Ticketmaster sometime won’t let you sell the ticket to another person, or only allows you to sell back to them at 1/10th the face value…just so they can resell it again. Didnt even mention all the convenience fees for all those trades too.

      If I had a paper ticket, I could just sell it no problem

      • @[email protected]English
        0•4 months ago

        Going through a scalper means that the ticket supply is artificially decreased, which pumps up the price. Then you run the risk of your ticket not working when you turn up to the venue.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•4 months ago

          Scalping increases the liquidity of tickets. This establishes a “market price” that can be higher or lower than the face value.