President Obama Signs Act Which Makes Ticket Bots Illegal

A new law may make it easier for live music fans to purchase tickets for high-demand events. Yesterday, President Barack Obama signed S.3183, also known as the “BOTS Act Of 2016,” after it passed through Congress. The Better Online Ticket Sales Act of 2016 “prohibits the circumvention of control measures used by Internet ticket sellers to ensure equitable consumer access to tickets for certain events” according to the White House.

The new law comes weeks after New York State passed a similar measure. Now it is not only illegal for anyone or any company to use a bot or software to get around rules from ticketing services such as purchasing more tickets for an event than the maximum allowed, but it is now also against the law to resell tickets purchased using a bot or similar software. In other words, if you are trying to sell tickets that you know were purchased using a bot, you’ll be breaking the new law.

By The Wavs shares more details:

This law comes much overdue with tickets for many shows and festivals selling out immediately only to be found in the masses on resale sites. According to the BOTS Act, this gives the state government power to bring civil suits on behalf of the residents in which they can seek to receive damages or other forms of compensation for the affected residents. Finally, the law gives the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) the power to participate when needed in those civil cases as well.

Here’s hoping the BOTS act will truly help do away with ticketing bots.

JamBase Collections

• Music Industry News