Published
Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 16:20
- The new law will protect online ticket prices from scalpers who use bots to buy tickets en masse.
Outgoing US president Barack Obama signed the Better Online Ticket Sales Act into law yesterday.
The law is designed to put a stop to companies who use "bots" to buy swaths of online tickets within seconds of going on sale, then sell them at inflated prices. Legislators behind the act worked closely with the US online ticketing behemoth Ticketmaster to create a law that will eradicate the secondary market created by these bots. It follows a series of public outcries this year when tickets for a number of prominent tours—Adele and Bruce Springsteen, Billboard pointed out—sold out almost instantly, only to reappear on third-party sites at higher price points.
There have been similar problems with high-profile theater shows like Hamilton, where tickets are now on sale via StubHub for $15,000 a piece, according to SF Weekly. The BOTS act has outlawed the use of these bot technologies for any seller that "participated in, had the ability to control, or should have known about the violation," a White House Press Secretary said in a statement.
In 2014, RA launched its own ticket resale service—an industry first—in a bid to "eradicate the circulation of fraudulent tickets and prevent touts profiting from in-demand shows."