‘Master’ sues scalper over ‘Hamilton’-buying bots
ALBANY — Ticketmaster on Monday filed suit against a major scalper who is said to have used illegal technology to scoop up huge amounts of tickets to hot entertainment events like “Hamilton” before selling them way above face value.
The lawsuit filed against Prestige Entertainment in Los Angeles Federal Court seeks damages that a source said is in excess of $10 million.
Ticketmaster had been tracking Prestige Entertainment for the past two years. Prestige managed to use software technology known as bots to quickly purchase about 30,000 tickets to the Broadway smash “Hamilton”-often up to 40% of the entire amount of tickets available for a given performance, the suit says.
Ticketmaster wound up canceling the purchases and putting the tickets back in the system so fans would have a better crack at them, the source with knowledge of the situation said.
Prestige also purchased a majority of the tickets off Ticketmaster to the 2015 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight in Las Vegas.
All told, Ticketmaster’s records show that from January 2015 through September 2016, Prestige and its associates made at least 313,528 orders using 9,047 different accounts.
“Each of these orders harmed Ticketmaster and inhibited human consumers from using and enjoying the benefits of Ticketmaster’s ticket purchasing platform,” the suit says.
Ticketmaster had previously sent a cease-and-desist letter to Prestige Entertainment putting it on notice, but the ticket broker didn’t stop, the source said.
In its suit, Ticketmaster accuses Prestige of copyright infringement and of violating terms of use by using bots on Ticketmaster’s website and mobile app.
Ticketmaster also accuses Prestige of breach of contract, fraud and violations of state and federal computer abuse laws.
The suit says Prestige and its associates “surreptitiously attempt to conceal their identities by using a variety of account names, email addresses, physical addresses, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, and credit cards.”
All told, Prestige made tens of millions of dollars reselling tickets to live events, the majority of which were procured using bots, the source said.
“Ticketmaster has zero tolerance for bots and will continue to employ all available methods to stop their usage,” a Ticketmaster spokeswoman said.
A rep for Prestige could not be reached for comment.
New York in 2016 enacted a law outlawing bot software that allows brokers to buy thousands of tickets within seconds of their going on sale. That same year, the federal government also enacted the BOTS Act making the use of such technology illegal.