Live Nation and Ticketmaster Move to Dismiss FTC Scalping Lawsuit

Lawyers for Live Nation and Ticketmaster in the US have claimed an FTC lawsuit against them is an "egregious instance of agency overreach", calling for its dismissal in a motion filed earlier this week.

Per Variety, the lawsuit claims the companies enabled scalpers to purchase beyond their advertised ticket purchasing limits, allowing for the resale of tickets at steep markups far above face value. Citing the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act of 2016, the suit was brought against Live Nation and Ticketmaster in September last year.

The companies are calling for its dismissal, arguing the lawsuit misinterprets the law. “This statute is designed to help ticket issuers like Ticketmaster combat ticket harvesting and scalping, ensuring that tickets are accessible to genuine fans,” their lawyers wrote. “Plaintiffs now ask this Court to take the unprecedented step of applying this law against a ticket issuer for its operation of a resale platform.”

While Live Nation and Ticketmaster admitted that, despite their best efforts, scalpers persist, the motion asserts that Ticketmaster is the intermediary of person-to-person resales, not a reseller itself.

"Ticketmaster’s efforts, scalpers persist in using technology to step in front of fans to obtain an outsized share of tickets and resell them at marked up prices in a multibillion-dollar resale market. For instance, brokers create hundreds or thousands of Ticketmaster accounts to buy more tickets without exceeding the per-account ticket limit. Scalpers also use software that allows them to log into multiple accounts at the same time to bypass screening and verification measures,” they wrote.

Live Nation is already fending off separate legal pressure from the Department of Justice, which has accused the company of maintaining monopolistic control over the live events ecosystem - a case with potentially broader implications for the industry.

“We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing that suit.

A hearing on the dismissal request is scheduled for February 19th.