Considering that the sales of CDs has been declining for some time now, it’s not really a surprise that bands, agents and record labels are looking to recoup some lost income anyway they can. But surprisingly, music acts are now seeking a piece of the action from an unlikely source: scalpers.
British bands, Radiohead and The Verve have joined a coalition of nearly 500 other acts known as the “Resale Rights Society.” The society is basically a British music industry “Union” of sorts that is seeking a requirement that fees be paid from the “secondary sale” of tickets; in other words, scalping. The fees collected by the society would be used to compensate bands, booking agents, managers and promoters.
Rather than trying to criminalize the activity of tickets scalping, the new society is seeking to return a share of the profits to the music industry, according to wired.com. Resale Rights Society chairman Mark Margo said, “It is unacceptable that not a penny of the estimated 200,000,000 pounds in annual transactions generated by the resale of concert tickets in the UK is returned to the investors in the live music industry.”
In the U. S., ticket scalping is widely practiced, though a few US states have outlawed the activity, and others have limited the extent to which scalpers can profit from the sale of concert and other event tickets. In addition, web sites such as eBay have routinely allowed scalpers to sell tickets at any price they like.
And although music fans often see scalping as an unfair practice, many concertgoers recognize that buying tickets from a “secondary sale” vendor is often the easiest way to get good seats at sold out concerts.
If the Resale Rights Society succeeds in the UK, you can expect to see a similar union coming together in the US to profit from the sale of scalper’s tickets, though a US version of the society may face considerable difficulty in getting their piece of the pie.
The problem is that, in the US the trend over the past decade has been toward rolling back anti-scalping laws. But there is some hope for the U. S. concert promotion industry: an event ticket is essentially a contract, and assuming that contract contains the right terms, an industry group such as the Resale Rights Society could have a legal say in how ticket is resold.
But other industry experts argue that paying a royalty on the reselling of a ticket makes no legal or ethical sense whatsoever. Eric Baker, founder of Viagogo, said in an interview with Reuters, “If I have a Harry Potter book to resell, do I pay JK Rowling twice?”
Who knows how this latest music industry litigation will end up, but one thing is for certain: the lawyers are sure to make a lot of money out of the controversy.
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