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TicketMaster Fights Off Robots
Five minutes after researching and posting this, I checked my Gmail only to find that it had used my recent searches to offer suggested content at the top of my email experience. They’re at least smart though: it is content that interests me:
A federal judge has granted a request by Ticketmaster LLC to block a software company from making or distributing computer programs used to flood the ticket retailer’s Web site with orders, beating consumers who log onto the Web site manually to buy tickets.
The reason TicketMaster won’t let this system run though is not out of some noble notion of fairness to the customer. It is simply because this program breaks their monopoly over ticket distribution and takes power out of their hands. This is my favorite quote from the article:
“We will not allow others to illegally divert tickets away from fans,” Ticketmaster Chief Executive Sean Moriarty said in a statement.
Right, they can’t allow *others* to divert tickets away from fans, because that job is squarely taken already by TicketMaster themselves!
In her ruling, the judge determined that that RMG’s software harms Ticketmaster and the public “because it denies consumers the opportunity to purchase tickets to events at a fair price.”
Collins cited reports of complaints by fans, including many parents who were priced out of getting tickets for Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana concert tour.
First of all, that judge’s ruling is completely bogus because TicketMaster’s prices are *anything* but fair. Their “convenience” fees are no joke. Or at least, they don’t make me laugh.
This shit about scalpers driving up ticket prices is also fucking idiotic because it is TicketMaster to begin with who is driving up ticket prices. The only thing they don’t like about scalpers is that scalpers are allowed to sell shit for more money than they themselves could get away with realistically.
Maybe a little robot intervention is all we need: if only we could create robots to buy tickets and then re-sell them for cheaper prices and make TicketMaster eat itself.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I actually used to work as a bot-writer for a ticket scalping company, and I have a small difference of opinion as to TM’s motivations. I do not think they mind brokers a single bit, their only concern is selling out the venue, they’ve then maximized their profit. They have to put up a fig leaf because their customers expect them to protect the fairness of availability, but unless this unrest becomes so great that people actively avoid TM, they have no incentive to really try and stop broker-bots.
I imagine they also like to keep out the smallest, crappiest brokers, due to the fact that orders will be cancelled less frequently, they can ensure there are fewer credit card disputes. They also get to blame any technical problems, high prices, unavailability on brokers, so they’re blameless in every case of customer complaint.
You will notice they only change their anti-bot defenses when there is a high-profile news story about ticket price gouging, in this case, that Hannah Montana stuff. It’s not like this company appeared out of nowhere, and it’s not like there aren’t literally thousands of similar competing companies, some with custom software, not this off-the-shelf stuff. Look at their captchas sometime too, they (and other similar ticket sites) don’t really try all that hard, particularly back when I used to work on cracking them.
Who would be surprised if some TM employees are getting a cut from the other side? But collusion isn’t necessary to suppose, the TM/broker relationship is win-win.
That’d be a losing proposition (unless someone really wants to play hardball with TM), but by selling a few special tickets for high prices and distributing the profit across all normal tickets, you could lower the typical ticket price.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
No shit! That’s really interesting!
Yes, you’re absolutely right. That’s a more eloquent and useful way of explaining this issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_guy
I would be surprised if they *didn’t*!
So, figure out what it would take to turn this into a business! It wouldn’t necessarily even need to be a profitable business (although maybe that destroys the concept of what a business is?) - it would just be a consumer-protection check & balance against an otherwise untouchable corporate monopoly! Or you could find some way to make wads of cash off it!
October 18th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Not entirely. If it’s a small business you love and it suits your goals in life you’re fine as long as you break even. My Dad did this for years. He was technically disabled but he came from the generation that believed that you weren’t a man if you didn’t work. Break even created pride, self worth, a sense of community, personal relationships etc. He would’ve died a couple of decades earlier if he hadn’t been able to do it.
October 19th, 2007 at 2:56 am
Islam has something in it about this: about how you can’t die owing anyone money. One of our old landlords went off about that once, whose last name was Islam.