Comment by cypherpunks01
2 years ago
I dug up the court docs referenced in that article, it's pretty interesting-
AXS Group LLC v. Internet Referral Services LLC (2:24-cv-00377) District Court, C.D. California
Amended complaint: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40906148#40910690).
Basically, brokers are using the "secure.tickets" and similar websites to proxy ticket barcodes to buyers, without going through the actual ticket transfer mechanisms on the primary ticketer AXS/TM, (similar to how this blogger does). Then resellers are delivering these ticket URLs, hosted on random websites, to Seatgeek and Stubhub customers, and those platforms are supporting their delivery by telling their customers that the tickets are legit. Sounds like AXS is fighting back against this practice.
The underlying issue is that those tickets have a "no resale" provision that doesn't apply when the original seller acts as a broker.
Do other brokers, when they go and work around that limitation break the sales contact? Maybe. The legal system would churn an answer in a few years.
Do AXS et al with their "only we are allowed to engage in a secondary policy" are abusing their monopoly on original sales? The legal system would churn an answer about the legality of this in few years, but I think it's obvious they at least break rules in the spirit.