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Culture select committee to consider secondary ticketing and the bloody bots
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 10 November 2016
As the recently re-energised campaign against secondary ticketing continues to put pressure on the UK government to better enforce existing regulation of online ticket touting, Parliament’s Culture, Media And Sport Select Committee will consider the issue next week.
As previously reported, last month Nigel Adams MP proposed an amendment to the in-development Digital Economy Bill to make it illegal to use so called ‘bots’ to hoover up large numbers of tickets to in-demand events in order to resell them for profit on the secondary sites.
However, the amendment was withdrawn after the government pledged to investigate whether the use of such software is already illegal under the Computer Misuse Act, something suggested by Professor Waterson in his recent review of the secondary ticketing market. Though another ticket touting themed amendment could as yet be proposed as the DEB continues to work its way through the parliamentary process.
The bloody bots – and other secondary ticketing issues – will be discussed by the cultural select committee next Tuesday. Representing those in the music community who are campaigning against online touting will be Josh Franceschi from You Me At Six, artist manager Ian McAndrew and Annabella Coldrick from the Music Managers Forum.
While insisting that everything’s fine – though if you’re going to regulate anything, make it the bloody bots – will be Ticketmaster’s Chris Edmonds, eBay’s Alasdair McGowan and StubHub’s Paul Peak. Also due to be questioned are Jonathan Brown from the trade body for primary ticket sellers, the Society Of Ticket Agents And Retailers, plus Reg Walker from Iridium Consultancy and the aforementioned Prof Waterson.
The meeting will take place in Parliament in a room to be confirmed later today, and will be available online at www.parliamentlive.tv.
