This is one of those fights where you just hope everyone involved loses. Beyond losing, I’d prefer they all fall into a bottomless pit, but I’m not sure that’s attainable.

Jesus, is there any way both sides can lose? Because fuck ticket scalpers, but fuck Ticketmaster too.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that at this point Ticketmaster might be one of the most hated company in America.

Yah. Pearl Jam spent years in limbo because they thought everyone would join the fight. But no big name artists ever did because no one wanted to rock the boat. During COVID ticketmaster / clear channel/liveNation/ iHeartRadio whatever have continued to consolidate. They own the tickets they own the resell websites they own most of the big venues they can demand merch sales at the venue. If you refuse they can remove you from playing their venues.

At this point it would take 10+ huge artists to final kill this beast. We are talking Taylor Swift / Beyonce big that actually have complete creative control. I don’t even think most top artists have that. They would have to organize everything and they would probably lose union contracts for stage craft and audio, lights, transportation. Basically they would have to start their own ticket & touring companys that outdoor fields and sports areas? and would have to stick it out for years and convince a good majority to stop buying tickets from any place using Ticketmaster.

Fuck ticketmaster. Fuck scalpers also. But ticketmaster are also scalpers so fuck them twice.

And there are technical details from the reverse-engineering of Ticketmaster’s ticket format here. tl;dr: it’s two of the TOTP authentication codes you use for 2-factor authentication rolled into a barcode, along with some additional data.

I absolutely fucking hate Ticketmaster’s way of doing this, because they require access to your phone. And they won’t let me use my normal VPN, or anything that blocks them from having location access. I would rather drive to the goddamn venues–what are about 90 minutes from my home–and buy tickets in person, than to deal with Ticketmaster or AXS “security” measures that attempt to circumvent my security.

Yes they’re TOTP codes and Ticketmaster gives you the secret. You do in fact have the ticket.

In the blog post, Conduition explains that, essentially, these tickets work in the same way as two-factor authentication codes in authenticator apps. These are called “Time-based One-Time Passwords,” and can be generated offline (like a 2FA code). Ticketmaster basically shares a secret, unique token with the person who bought the ticket. This token allows the Ticketmaster app to generate a “new” ticket every 15 seconds based on the time of day. Once the device has this token, it is possible to generate the tickets no matter whether it’s online or not. As Conduition found, if you’ve bought a ticket, this token can be extracted from within the Ticketmaster app (or, in some cases, from Ticketmaster’s desktop website), exported to a third-party platform, and tickets can then be generated on that third-party platform.

Normally I LOATHE scalpers.

But for these guys I’m willing to make an exception.

The original reporting by 404media is excellent in that it covers the background context, links to the actual PDF of the lawsuit, and reaches out to an outside expert to verify information presented in the lawsuit and learned from their research. It’s a worthwhile read, although it’s behind a paywall; archive.ph may be effective though.

For folks that just want to see the lawsuit and its probably-dodgy claims, the most recent First Amended Complaint is available through RECAP here, along with most of the other legal documents in the case. As for how RECAP can store copies of these documents, see this FAQ and consider donating to their cause.

Basically, AXS complains about nine things, generally around: copyright infringement, DMCA violations (ie hacking/reverse engineering), trademark counterfeiting and infringement, various unfair competition statutes, civil conspiracy, and breach of contract (re: terms of service).

I find the civil conspiracy claim to be a bit weird, since it would require proof that the various other ticket websites actually made contact with each other and agreed to do the other eight things that AXS is complaining about. Why would those other websites – who are mutual competitors – do that? Of course, this is just the complaint, so it’s whatever AXS wants to claim under “information and belief”, aka it’s what they think happened, not necessarily with proof yet.

After one of the researchers published their findings in February, brokers tried to hire the researcher to build ticket transfer services for them.

… so they could be silenced by an NDA.

at this point in life I think I already saw all the bands I wanted in concert. I think I can afford to boycot these mfs and stick to local concerts that dont use that garbage company.

They got some “fuck you got mine” mentality now?

I don’t buy anything on ticketmaster. I won’t install their app.

I still see people I want to see. I just may have to travel to do so.

generating entry barcodes on parallel infrastructure

I guess that reverse engineering itself isn’t illegal, but creating tickets without the real ticket seller’s authorization seems plain fraud IMHO.