Technology

59422 readers

2957 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

713

Scalpers Work With Hackers to Liberate Ticketmaster's ‘Non-Transferable’ Tickets (www.404media.co)

submitted 4 months ago by Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de to c/technology@lemmy.world

71 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

(page 2) 29 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

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.

load more comments (6 replies)

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

So ticketmasters tickets were so unsecured that some hackers were able to break the scheme? Hmm, maybe they should have employed a professional then...

[+] downpunxx@fedia.io -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (19 children)

[deleted]

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Artists don't have enough money in the bank to enact what would basically be a strike. If they stopped playing Ticketmaster venues, they'd basically stop playing actual venues entirely. They'd have to play tiny independent venues, where they'd end up losing money, because they physically can't sell enough tickets to cover the cost of time, travel, paying roadies, etc. Or, the ticket prices would be inaccessibly high.

The problem with live shows is directly attributable to the effective monopoly that Ticketmaster has, allowing them to fuck over artists and venues equally.

[–] nickhammes@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

The very few artists who do, and have the creative freedom to so do are probably the only ones who could get away with this. Convention Centers don't seem to have the same density of existing Ticketmaster relationships, and while they'd have to pay to bring in seating at some, I bet they could do it for something similar to Ticketmaster's middleman fees.

I'm not sure the difference between costs for concert venues and convention centers, but if it's anywhere near comparable, it could be feasible.

load more comments (18 replies)

load more comments