Consumer Rights Bill

Written evidence submitted by Ticketmaster UK Limited (CR 26)

Consumer Rights Bill 2013-14

Submission to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee

Overview: this submission contains a proposal for n ew statutory provisions to make unlawful the use of automated computer programmes to acquire large volumes of live event tickets for resale, which is regarded as to the detriment of consumers.

1. About Ticketmaster UK

Ticketmaster is the ticketing business of Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. Live Nation Entertainment is the world’s leading live entertainment company comprised of four market leaders: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, Artist Nation Management and Live Nation Media/Sponsorship.

Live Nation seeks to innovate and enhance the live entertainment experience for artists and fans: before, during and after the show.

Ticketmaster's family of ticketing companies includes GET ME IN!, a leading UK based online ticket marketplace dedicated to the resale of live event tickets.

In the UK we employ nearly 1000 people across our London Headquarters , Manchester c ontact centre and offices in Stoke-on Trent and Glasgow .

2. Our ideas for enhancing consumer protection

Recognising the broad scope of the Consumer Rights Bill, and its objective of consolidating legislation and making it fit for the age of digital commerce, we see a pertinent opportunity to protect fans from those seeking to exploit technology to make access to tickets harder. We would commend our proposal for introducing new clauses to the Bill at Committee stage, and have prepared sample legislation as part of this briefing.

Technology is our business. Yet the e-commerce nature of ticketing means that we are in a constant battle against those that want to exploit the lawful ticket market. Nowhere is this problem more acutely represented than in the use of automated computer programmes – or ‘bots’ – to syphon tickets on an industrial scale.

We believe that the use of bots should rightly be regarded as a criminal activity and in no way should it be viewed as part and parcel of lawful ticket resale, which we strongly support. Fans tell us that they want the option to buy and resell tickets, and through our safe and transparent GET ME IN! platform, we enable this.

However, it is our responsibility as an industry to help protect fans from those who seek to abuse the system by syphoning off tickets. The use of advanced technologies to tackle bots is having an impact, we are vigilant and our investment in cutting edge technologies is significant. But this is an arms race that needs industry, government, consumer and retail groups to come together and tackle the issue head on. That is why we would welcome consideration of this issue, and our call for a clear law relating to it, in the House of Commons Public Bill Committee on the Consumer Rights Bill.

3. The proposed clauses and their meaning

Anti-Bot legislation:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if:

(a) he uses or sells an application, software, program, device or code to, or attempt to, manipulate or circumvent a security measure, access control system, or other control system or measure on an Internet website;

(b) the manipulation or circumvention is unauthorised; and

(c) he knew or was reckless as to whether the manipulation or circumvention caused or attempted to be caused was unauthorised. 

(2) A person is guilty of an offence if he intentionally or knowingly hinders or provides another with the technological means of hindering or interrupting, without right, the functioning of a computer system, Internet website, or any part thereof by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering, suppressing data or rendering data inaccessible.

(3) A person is guilty of an offence if he knowingly purchases, sells or resells goods obtained through the commission of an offence under Section (1) or (2).

Explanatory Notes:

Section 1

Our proposed Section 1 is designed to criminalise the use (and sale) of bots. Our proposed Section 1(a) has been drafted to be broad in scope and technology-neutral in order to allow for advances in technology.

Our proposed Section 1 is based on the "anti-bot law" implemented by California [1] and Section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 [2] ("CMA 1990").

Section 1 of the CMA 1990, requires an individual to have "knowledge" for an offence to be committed, whilst our proposed Section 1(c) requires knowledge or recklessness. The lower test of recklessness is aimed at a seller of a bot.

Section 2

Our proposed Section 2 is drafted to be consistent with the Cybercrime Directive [3] , which has been adopted by the UK and Ireland and must be implemented by 4 September 2015.

The Cybercrime Directive aims to introduce laws to deal with the offences of: (i) unauthorised access to information systems; (ii) system interference; and (iii) data interference. Article 9 of the Cybercrime Directive provides for maximum terms of imprisonment for each of the offences.

Our proposed Section 2 would make an offence of activity that "hinders" the functioning of a website (and that would not necessarily fall within the scope of our proposed Section 1 (for example,  rental of IP addresses to disguise a customer’s originating IP address)).

Our proposed Section 2 is widely drafted to make an offence of "knowingly" assisting with the commission of an offence. Those who "knowingly" assist could include individuals who complete Captchas for a fee.

Section 3

Our proposed Section 3 is designed to make an offence of knowingly dealing in goods obtained through the commission of an offence (under our proposed Section 1 or Section 2).

Our proposed Section 3 has been limited to those who "knowingly" purchase goods, rather than "knowingly or recklessly" as it is arguable that those utilising the secondary market, due to their knowledge of the prevalence of bots, will be reckless as to whether a ticket was purchased by a bot. The intention of the legislation is not to prosecute individual purchasers of a ticket for an event on the secondary market.

Sanctions

Proposed sanctions have not been provided for the offences in the proposed Sections 1 -3. A starting point for considering sanctions would be Article 9 of the Cybercrime Directive (as above) and Section 1(3) CMA 1990:

"A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable-

(a)on summary conviction in England and Wales, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both;

(b)on summary conviction in Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both;

(c)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine or to both."

March 2014