Tag: ticketmaster
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Ticketmaster Claims Cyber Attack Caused Taylor Swift Tour Sale Issues
Ticketmaster is opening up about what caused the debacle of trying to get Taylor Swift tour tickets.
More details below…
According to BBC News, Joe Berchtold – the president of Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation claimed that the company knew “bots would attack,” however it caused them other troubles.
“While the bots failed to penetrate our systems or acquire any tickets,
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What Happened at the Ticketmaster Senate Hearing: Taylor Swift, Bots and More – CNET
Ticketmaster Senate hearing brings Taylor Swift puns and Swifties to the Capitol
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to investigate Live Nation and the lack of competition in the music industry. In the process, they also flexed their Taylor Swift lyrical knowledge.
The hearing comes after after reports of significant service failures and delays on Ticketmaster’s website in November that left Swift’s millions of fans unable to purchase tickets to her Eras Tour. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard from live-industry executives and anti-trust experts.
During the hearing Senators grilled Joe Berchtold, the president and CFO of Live Nation, and listened to accounts of Live Nation’s business operations. They also brainstormed potential solutions to the issue. The hearing was announced by U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee, chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition, Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, respectively, and was held in front of the full Judiciary Committee with Chair Dick Durbin and incoming Ranking Member Lindsey Graham.
Senators and witnesses alike we unafraid to wield Swift’s iconic lyrics against the monster on the Hill itself, Live Nation. Were the quotes a bit forced? Sure. But there’s no time for would’ve could’ve should’ve now. Here’s a list of every Swiftian pun made during the hearing.
1. “All too well”
“All Too Well,” Red
Klobuchar kicked things off with the first Swift quote of the hearing. She invoked the fan-favorite and emotionally devastating track “All Too Well” when she said, “To have a strong capitalist system you can’t have too much consolidation something that unfortunately for this country…we know all too well“
2. “She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers”
“You Belong With Me,” Fearless
Lee made a fearless joke about Klobuchar’s position as chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition, Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights: “To be honest I had hoped as of a few months ago to get the gavel back, but once again she’s on cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers.”
3. “This is why we can’t have nice things”
“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” Reputation
Sal Nuzzo, one of the witnesses and the vice president of the James Madison Institute, countered claims that Live Nation’s growth had benefitted consumers with, “A few million Taylor Swift fans would respond, ‘This is why we can’t have nice things.'”
4. “I’m the problem, it’s me”
“Anti-Hero,” Midnights
In perhaps the celebrated quote of the hearing, Senator Richard Blumenthal told Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold, “May I suggest, respectfully, that Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem, It’s me.'” You have to wonder if he’s listened to the full-track which notably includes the line, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman?”
5. “A nightmare dressed like a daydream”
“Blank Space,” 1989
Lee described the potential solution to ticketing issues of restricting consumer’s ability to transfer tickets as “a nightmare dressed like a daydream.”
6. “Karma is a relaxing thought, aren’t you envious that for you it’s not”
“Karma,” Midnights
Lee ended the hearing with an acknowledgement of his Swifite daughter: “I have to throw out, in deference to my daughter Eliza, one more Taylor Swift quote. ‘Karma is a relaxing thought, aren’t you envious that for you it’s not.'”
Call it what you want, but it looks like there are some Swifties in the Senate.
Ticketmaster knows it has a bot problem, but it wants Congress to fix it
In November, millions of Taylor Swift fans logged on to Ticketmaster hoping to scoop up tickets to arguably the most-anticipated tour of 2023. When the time came, the site crashed, rendering verified users unable to purchase admission to the singer’s first slate of shows in five years. In the immediate aftermath, Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation explained that while 1.5 million people had signed up as legit customers, over 14 million hit the site when tickets went on sale — many of which were bots.
Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold told the Senate Judiciary Comittee on Tuesday that the company “learned valuable lessons” from the Swift debacle. “In hindsight there are several things we could have done better – including staggering the sales over a longer period of time and doing a better job setting fan expectations for getting tickets,” he said.
Berchtold told Senators that Ticketmaster experienced three times more bot traffic that day than it ever had before, and that a cyberattack on the company’s verified fan password servers exacerbated the problem. He explained that despite investing over $1 billion in ticketing systems since the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger, mostly to combat fraud and scalping, the company has a massive bot problem that it can’t get a handle on.
“We also need to recognize how industrial scalpers breaking the law using bots and cyberattacks to try to unfairly gain tickets contributes to an awful consumer experience,” Berchtold said. What he called “industrialized scalping” led to the Taylor Swift fiasco, he explained, but the executive wants Congress to act to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
Berchtold called for Congress to expand the scope of the BOTS Act to “increase enforcement.” Signed into law in 2016, the legislation makes it illegal to bypass a website’s security or tech features as a means of purchasing tickets. It also makes it illegal to resell tickets obtained via those methods. Specifically, Berchtold called for banning the use of fraudulent URLs and stopping the resale of tickets before their general on-sale date.
The law leaves enforcement with the FTC and states, a topic Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn discussed with Berchtold in some of the most pointed questioning of the session. “You told me yesterday you block about 90 percent of the bot attacks that you get, and that’s a failing grade,” she said. “There ought to be people you can get some good advice from because our critical infrastructure in this country gets bot attacks every single day. They have figured it out, but you guys haven’t?”
Blackburn admitted that the FTC has only taken action on the law once, and that the lack of widespread action was “unacceptable.” She pledged to do something about the lack of enforcement through the dealings of the Senate Commerce Committee, where she is also a member.
“The FTC has the authority, but you have a responsibility to consumers,” she continued. “I agree they are not exercising it, but how many times have you called the FTC and said ‘we need your help?'”
Berchtold explained that Live Nation had only contacted the FTC once about suspected bot activity — in late 2019 and early 2020. He said that was the only time they had necessary information to work with the commission in order to get a prosecution. “These are not bots that are trying to break into our system, they are trying to impersonate people… putting true fans at a disadvantage,” Berchtold told Blackburn when asked why Live Nation has such a hard time recognizing bots.
In regards to the BOTS Act, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told Berchtold there are already legal options available to the company to go after scalpers using bots to procure tickets.
“You have unlimited power to go to court,” Blumenthal said. “Your approach seems to be that everyone else is responsible here — not us.”
Did You Miss It? #Swifties Launch SECOND Lawsuit Against Ticketmaster Over Taylor Swift ‘Eras Tour’ Drama
Just weeks after a group of Taylor Swift fans (affectionately called #Swifties) made headlines for suing Ticketmaster for its reported mishandling of ticket sales for the diva’s forthcoming ‘Eras‘ stadium tour (as we reported here), other members of the devoted fan group are following suit with their own lawsuit.
Despite multiple apologies from the company,
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