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Ticket touting illegal in New York again, for now

By | Published on Friday 5 June 2009

So this is interesting, online ticket touting is all but illegal in New York State just now because an amendment to old ticketing laws has reached the end of its pilot period and legislators have failed to renew it.

The State used to have very strict rules about the resale of tickets at a marked-up prices, capping the price that could be charged for resold tickets to just two dollars above face value. That restriction was lifted in 2007 in an amendment proposed by former State Governor Eliot Spitzer, who thought ticket resale prices were a matter for the free market not lawmakers. But the amendment had a limited lifespan, and needed to be renewed on Monday, which it wasn’t.

Of course the 2007 lifting of restrictions on ticketing touting, or scalping as it’s known in the US, was handy for the online secondary ticketing market that has grown in recent years, and where tickets for in-demand live events regularly sell for two or three times their face value. In theory the failure to renew Spitzer’s amendment makes the use of such services in New York State illegal.

Although the free market amendment has lapsed, that doesn’t mean local politicians are all against the secondary ticketing market, despite criticism of it by some in the live music industry, and concerns being raised by political and consumer groups that rampant online ticket touting rips off consumers.

In fact talks are ongoing regarding a new State law which would allow ticket resales, but which would put some restrictions in place over the way resale services are promoted, and in the way primary ticket sellers transfer people to any secondary ticketing services they are involved in. The latter measure, of course, is a direct response to ticketing giant Ticketmaster controversially promoting its secondary ticketing service TicketsNow via its main official ticketing website.

But some are glad that, for the time being at least, ticketing touting is essentially not allowed in New York. One local politician, Richard Brodsky, who has called for resold tickets to be capped at a 25% mark up, told Billboard this week: “For better or worse, ticket scalping is illegal again, thank goodness”.

Meanwhile, commenting on the revamped laws currently being negotiated on the issue, Russ Haven of the New York Public Interest Research Group also called on current New York governor David Paterson to put in place limitations on secondary ticketing. Referencing recent public investment in two local sports venues in NYC, he said: “This is an opportunity for the governor to stand up for fans across New York. He can make sure they can afford seats for events at arenas like Yankee Stadium and Citi Field that New York taxpayers paid to build”.

A spokesman for Paterson told reporters: “The governor’s office is working with the legislature on this bill and will review the final legislation once it has been delivered to his desk”.



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