New England Patriots Spying On Ticket Resales; Court Forces Stubhub To Hand Over Ticket Seller Names
from the privacy?-schmivacy dept
We've heard plenty of stories about organizations trying to ban the resale of tickets to events. It seems a bit silly to tell someone who bought a ticket to a concert or a sporting event that they're not allowed to resell it, but apparently some event organizers feel differently -- especially when the tickets are sold at greater than face value. The New England Patriots apparently are so adamant that people shouldn't be reselling their tickets for profit that they've convinced a court to force ticket resale marketplace StubHub to hand over the names of everyone who resold Patriots tickets for above face value. This seems like a rather large privacy violation -- and it clearly violates Stubhub's own terms of service (which is why the company fought it in court). You could understand being forced to turn over such information in a criminal lawsuit, but this is the New England Patriots requesting and getting the private info of sellers. For a team that just got into some trouble for spying on opposing teams, spying on their fans' private transactions doesn't seem like a step forward.
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Filed Under: football, privacy, resale, scalping, tickets
Companies: ebay, new england patriots, stubhub
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Right move for the wrong reason
I don't like the fact that the court essentially issued a subpoena on behalf of the Patriots owners/management, and force StubHub to turn over the information to them, rather than the police.
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Re: Right move for the wrong reason
What state law? What if they're not in Massachusetts and bought the tickets eitherthrough ticketmaster or something, and then turned around to sell them online? There are a lot of ticket brokers who make a business out of buying and selling tickets for a profit, and rarely are they in the same state as the event for which they sell tickets are held.
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An analogy
If search engines like Baidu force all Google or Yahoo searches to be redirected to Baidu in China, is that ok too?
http://www.afpbb.com/article/environment-science-it/it/2299982/2259959
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Re: An analogy
More than that, they can find out what people are willing to pay for the Mafia tickets and then raise the prices of those tickets to meet what the Mafia is selling. That'd force the mafia to raise their ticket prices, forcing down the number of fans that appear, reducing their profits, and again, drastically increasing the profits from ticket sales for the team itself.
It's .. basically win win for the stadiums. Why do they care?
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Re: Re: An analogy
Maybe in Mike's world, it's ok to have the mafia control everything, but most people don't want to live like that.
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Re: Re: Re: An analogy
Besides, what you are objecting to is demand pricing, which is pretty much the way every other good is sold (from airline tickets to gas to storage lockups) EXCEPT for event tickets.
Why does the government regulate event tickets and nothing else?
Chris.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: An analogy
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Re: An analogy
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What the Patriots want to spy and sue? who knew
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Scalping
I know it's not completely free market economics, but it's effectively driving up the costs for scalpers, which will drive down the supply in scalped tickets, right? That'll mean more fans can get hold of reasonably priced tickets, won't it?
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Re: Scalping
It shouldn't matter to the Patriots (or any sports team or rock band) what happens to tickets after they are sold. What's next? GM forbidding trading in GM vehicles at competing dealerships? This extension of control AFTER the transaction needs to end.
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Re: Re: Scalping
Can we say DMCA anyone! What do you mean I can't take apart my electronics and tinker with them?
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Re: Re: Scalping
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Missing an important fact
The teams and promoters can refuse entry or eject any person at any time - short of violating public accommodation laws - simply by refunding the ticket price. Once a ticket is sold to a third party for greater than face value, an interesting consumer protection issue arises. When someone buys a $75 ticket for $300 and then the event is canceled or they are refused admission, they are out $225.
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The Patriots could raise the price of the tickets themselves if they wanted to and would still sell out their games. Of course, scalpers buy up blocks of tickets and charge much more to corporations who want to entertain business clients, but from a team standpoint, those are not the fans that buy all the other products and services (jerseys, flags, beer) or hover over the TV during away games and line the streets during a parade.
Stubhub sells tickets owned by season ticket holders. When you buy those tickets there is a provision in the contract that states that you agree not to scalp the tickets. If they find out you do so, they will pull your ticket. The Pats have every right in "invade" their customers privacy, because information requested by the Pats was only for ticket holders that were scalping, or violating their contract.
Why are you against the Pats protecting their fan base? Supporting scalping and copyright theft, yeah, that seems about right.
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Re:
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The real purpose
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Re:
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I realize from a privacy point it gets more complicated, but at the same time software companies and etc are doing the same thing all the time. That's why bit torrent and p2p aren't really commercial endeavors, because a court would just do the same thing.
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Re:
It's a horrible business model to enforce. If anything it indicates that there is additional revenue that the team could earn if they used an auction system to sell tickets. The State would earn taxes on the additional revenue. Price caps never work - they result in an inefficient allocation of resources.
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Die Scalper Scum
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Re: Die Scalper Scum
If teams were really interested in protecting their fan base as RandomThoughts would have us believe, then they wouldn't have seasons tickets. All tickets would be sold an hour before the game. Every person would be given a number and those numbers and seat assignments would be chosen randomly. Some people get tickets, others don't. Some people get great seats, other's get crappy seats. But hey, it's all about the fans and being fair, right?
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hannah montana
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As for my copyright comment, it was an joke. Did you not get that? Guess not, one of us needs to work on their sense of humor. My wife thinks its me.
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Re:
Read my reply to August West. If teams are all about protecting their fans, then why have seasons tickets in the first place? Just price the tickets at the same price, then randomly pick people and randomly assign seats an hour before the game. Yes, scapling would occur, but so what, everyone had a chance to get a ticket and a good seat. After all the Pats are a benevolent society not a company, right?
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Inefficient? You want inefficient, don't sell tickets an hour before the event. Not only would that be inefficient, that would be dangerous.
As for supply and demand, I am not a Pats fan, but I doubt their demand can get any higher than it already is (and will even grow if the Red Sox lose another game) so they could sell their tickets for pretty much anything they want. I think the Pats administration knows a few things about their industry and what would damage their relationship with the customer. Obviously they thought that customers using Stubhub isn't good for the overall fan base.
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Re:
The fans that used StubHub think otherwise.
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The fans that used StubHub think otherwise.
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Too bad the fans that think using StubHub are voilating their agreement when they bought the season tickets in the first place.
I would imagine those named by StubHub will quickly receive a letter from the Pats telling them something along the lines of "do this again and your ticket rights will be revoked. I would also imagine a cease and desist letter going to StubHub fairly quickly. This isn't a DMCA issue, because StubHub actually takes possession of the tickets before the final transfer. They also handle the money exchange.
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Re:
The kicker is that the Pats (and TicketMaster) charge service fees on the resale. Make money twice from the same ticket - so much for 'protecting the fans'. Also, you have to be an existing season ticket holder or be on the Season Ticket Wait List (which requires a deposit of $100 per seat) to buy these tickets - so much for 'protecting the fans'.
The application form for the wait list mentions that as a wait list member, "you may be offered the opportunity to purchase New England Patriot Tickets...before they are put up on sale to the general public." Another example of 'protecting the fans'.
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13,000, yes that is correct,
13000 names, addresses and phone numbers were handed over to the Patriots organization. These names are registered stubhub users who have at any time since 2002 even looked at a patriots ticket. They have not released info on who bought, sold, or was just browsing. They have no transaction info, just a list of names.
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As for Ticketmaster, from what I saw on their site for Patriot tickets, individual ticket prices max out at $125 with a limit of 8. Why do you suppose they limit the amount you can buy? Gee, thats inefficient.
As for StubHub, the lowest price tickets they have is $127 (for standing room only) with a high of $1,236.
I don't care how many times they charge me to sell a ticket, I would rather pay $127 than $1,236.
I think its obvious who is doing the protecting and who isn't.
I don't know about you, but I do think its protecting me when they charge $125 instead of
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Ticket Prices and supply/demand
I might even buy your arguement that the Pats are doing a 'good thing' by artificially deflating prices, except that once you get there, you have to pay $40 to park, $9 for a beer and $4 for a hot dog. Are they really concerned with my financial well being?
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Hey, they are trying to limit global warming and encouraging car pooling and mass transit. Also, for the beer and hot dog, they are trying to protect your health.
Answer me this, how would you feel drinking your $9 beer on top of a thousand dollar ticket?
Maybe their attitude is "only we can screw our customers"
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Wait a moment
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Re: Wait a moment
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Thats a totally naive observation of this story.
No one cares if someone buy a ticket and resells it for more or less face value - what they are trying to stop is scalping - the mass purchase of tickets purchased with the specific intent of significant profiteering from lack of later availability.
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