Rock managers propose tout tax
Cashing in on the 'aftermarket'
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The businessmen behind some of the rock world's biggest names have called for a levy on the concert ticket aftermarket, where people sell on tickets they have bought for profit or because they cannot go to a concert.
The live music industry in Britain is booming and several businesses have been set up specifically to serve the after market in tickets. Artists are now claiming they should share in revenue from those sales as well as the original sale.
Managers for artists including Radiohead, Robbie Williams, and Arctic Monkeys have backed the creation of the Release Rights Society (RRS), which would regulate secondary sales, label sites as complying with their standards and take a percentage of their earnings.
"It is unacceptable that not a penny of the estimated £200m in transactions generated by the resale of concert tickets in the UK is returned to the investors in the live music industry," said Marc Marot, chairman-elect of the proposed society. "Where this trade is fair to consumers, we propose to authorise it by agreeing a levy on all transactions."
The idea is the brainchild of the Music Managers' Forum and the society aims to come into being before the end of January 2008, with finalised plans for agreements with sales agencies in place by March.
The growth in ticket sales has led to a number of companies being set up to match buyers and sellers of tickets. They have vehemently opposed the idea of taxing the sale of tickets in the secondary market.
"This is just a bunch of pigs at the trough," Joe Cohen told The Guardian newspaper. Cohen is the chief executive of ticket sales company Seatwave. "They see some money and they want it. Our focus is to bring prices down in the secondary market and all this does is raise prices for consumers while adding no value at all."
"If I sell my Ford car, and have already paid for it, I don't have to pay Ford again when I sell it," chief executive of Viagogo Eric Baker told the same paper. "We don't understand the concept of taxing fans to buy tickets that have already been paid for."
The resale of tickets is not illegal, though e-commerce expert Struan Robertson of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said companies can attempt to ban it.
"Event organisers often sell tickets with conditions that forbid resale. That prohibition is a contract term, but it's really difficult to enforce," he said. "It takes personalised tickets and proof of identity to stem the flow of second-hand tickets through your doors – and that's expensive as well as a hassle."
Robertson said promoters face a problem even if they do put notices on tickets banning their sale. "The problem for organisers is that generally it's not illegal to resell a ticket, so under the current law you can't stop sites like eBay from hosting auctions for your tickets, because eBay isn't a party to your contract," he said.
The Government has investigated the issue and a report from Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport select committee is expected shortly. It has asked for submissions on whether touting as a whole should be outlawed.
The touting of football tickets is against the law for security reasons. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act banned the practice to preserve the integrity of fan segregation because of violence at football games. Parliament's consultation asked for views on whether that legislation should extend to music events.
Copyright © 2007, OUT-LAW.com
OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons.
COMMENTS
An alternative...
...would seem to be to sack off going to the kind of gigs that attract this kind of BS price war.
There are a hell of a lot of good acts who could do with the support and whose shows you can get into with change left over from a tenner.
Those too dumb and sheeplike to develop their own tastes in music are unlikely to find me sympathetic to their plight - it is precisely because people tend to flock towards whatever is currently popular (good or more often, not) that the secondary market exists.
Sorry if I sound like a pissed of teenage NME reader there but if you can't be bothered to explore the wider market you deserve to get scalped.
art is dead
This is amazing. the next thing they'll want is revenue from drinks sold, etc. These are the same morons who put standards on reselling old CDs so high that reasonable prices can't be levied in response to minor scratches that don't affect performance.
That aside, free market is free market. If you want to turn "art" into an industry, music into a "service" and performance into a for-profit seminar, then "what's good for goose..." people are just taking after the same business model: making money off of something they only have secondhand contact with. No business criminal at the RIAA or the british equivalent has any right to get all high and mighty regarding the "ethics" of regulating "art for profit."
RE Gert
I agree you should be able to get a refund if you cannot go, but that should mean that it goes back on sale at the box office. You can always find touts outside any event selling last minute tickets at inflated prices, what's wrong with being able to go to the box office instead and ask if there are any cancelled tickets available. Even if the box office charge a bit more for that, it won't be anywhere near the prices the touts want.
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