US Congress passes legislation over ticket-grabbing bots

[engine]

We all know the feeling of logging on to buy a concert ticket and it's sold out in moments before we get the chance. Us mere mortals don't stand a chance.
Now, the U.S. Congress has passed legislation to "crack down" on those using bots to snatch tickets.

It'll be interesting to see how it works out in actually catching the people involved, but time will tell.

[bbc.co.uk...]

[toidi]

There was a time when scalping tickets was illegal, now it is the norm.

[Dimitri]

Yeah! Now, I wonder how it will be apply technically...

Indirectly related, I thought that, at one time, tickets were supposed to be nominative, and so could be used only by the first buyer, and never be sold back.

[creeking]

maybe they could write it so bots cannot be used to snap expired-dropping domain names, too.

[LifeinAsia]

This is one of the reasons I don't go to concerts any more.

I sort of miss the old days of ditching school to line up outside a (now defunct) Tower Records store for hours to buy concert tickets when they first went on sale in the morning. Back then the "convenience fee" (for not having to drive all the way down to the venue) was something like $1/ticket. Now it's what, something like $10/ticket for the "convenience" of them not having to hire humans to sell tickets to their customers.

[keyplyr]

They outa just make a bot section of the concert & only let them buy tickets for there.

[skibum]

Between that and the "convenience fees" and parking fees and insane traffic, I stopped going to concerts unless its not sold out and the scalpers are giving away tickets.

[tangor]

Never ran into scalpers for concerts, then again, I didn't buy tickets ... people bought tickets to see me perform. :)

Though bot buyers ain't fair I am a little surprised it will take an Act of Congress to address them.