~~~oregon Springsteen Fan Sues Stub-hub~~~
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Fan finds ordinance the ticket for lawsuit
Access - A Portlander angered when tickets migrate to a resale site fights back with city statute
Wednesday, January 16, 2008BRENT HUNSBERGER The Oregonian Staff
Sharon Fehrs hopped online one Saturday morning last month to nab four seats near the stage for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's March 28 show at the Rose Garden.
She clicked and reclicked just as the tickets went on sale at 10 a.m., but couldn't find more than one seat available, her attorney says.
Minutes later, the longtime Springsteen fan noticed choice seats already available for sale on StubHub, an online ticket resale site. They were going for far in excess of their $95 face value.
Fed up, Fehrs filed a class-action lawsuit Jan. 9 against StubHub Inc., the nation's largest secondary ticket seller, and its parent, eBay Inc., the mammoth auction-site operator.
Her lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, alleges both companies violated the city of Portland's little-enforced anti-scalping law. She's asking the court to stop StubHub's practice and award damages to customers who opt into her lawsuit.
Fehrs declined to comment, but her attorney, John Neupert, said the Springsteen nut, who's seen the star live a half-dozen times, wants to ensure consumers have fair access to affordable seats at their favorite shows.
"She believes that StubHub and eBay operate an illegal secondary market that deprives people of an equitable opportunity to buy tickets at a reasonable price," said Neupert of Miller Nash in Portland.
Growing movement
Fehrs joins the vast and vocal fray developing around the resale of tickets to popular events such as Hannah Montana and -- these days, in this city -- Portland Trail Blazers games. In the past two years, the nation's largest ticket broker, a pro football team, a fan of pop band The Police and four state attorneys general have gone to court or launched investigations trying to rein in online ticket scalping.
A StubHub spokeswoman said the company, by policy, does not comment on pending legal matters.
Originally, tickets to Springsteen's concert in Portland went on sale on comcasttix.com for $65 to $95. Fans now can find them on StubHub for $103 to $1,000.
But StubHub and other secondary ticket reselling sites contend they are not ticket sellers but merely platforms where fans, can buy and sell tickets, and set their own prices.
Portland's anti-scalping ordinance bars anyone from reselling tickets for events at the Rose Garden and city-owned venues for more than the ticket's original retail price. Violators face a maximum $500 fine and six months in jail.
Rarely enforced
The ordinance is rarely enforced, judging by scalpers that work the sidewalk outside the Rose Garden before Trail Blazers games and city officials' admitted lack of experience with it.
"Nobody has really looked at that anti-scalping ordinance in a long, long time," said Jim Van Dyke, senior deputy city attorney for Portland and a 14-year veteran of the office. "It just hasn't come up."
He believes the ordinance was passed in 1977, the same year Portland won its only NBA title -- and well before the Internet spread.
Mike Golub, chief operating officer for the Trail Blazers, said it's unclear how the law applies to online transactions that might occur outside the city limits.
Golub said managers of the arena -- owned by Paul Allen -- try to enforce the city's anti-scalping ordinance on Rose Quarter grounds with its own security staff. But the team also has come to accept online ticket reselling, even providing an online resale site where season-ticket holders can auction tickets they can't use.
"From our standpoint, it's a marketplace that exists," Golub said. "If done the right way, it's a good thing."
Teams have taken varying approaches to online reselling, ranging from clamping down on scalping to using technology to nab some of the profits.
The New England Patriots, a perennial pro football powerhouse, sued StubHub in 2006, accusing the company of spurring fans to violate Massachusetts anti-scalping law. The case was settled.
Fan outrage also has prompted politicians to act. Last year, parents upset at being unable to get seats to Hannah Montana shows, performed by Miley Cyrus, 15, prompted attorneys general in Missouri, Arkansas, Connecticut and Pennsylvania to open investigations into ticket resellers.
Even the nation's largest ticket broker, Ticketmaster, won a court injunction last year against RMG Technologies Inc. after alleging RMG's software had helped scalpers get around a computer security program designed to bar automated ticket-buying programs. RMG President Cipriano Garibay told The New York Times that the company doesn't use sophisticated character-recognition software but instead pays workers in India $2 an hour to bypass the security measure. Attorneys suing RMG doubt that claim.
Class-action suit
Ticketmaster's lawsuit prompted Boaz Lissauer, a New Jersey resident who paid a reseller $195 for $65 tickets to a Police concert last year in New York City, to file a class-action lawsuit last month in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati against RMG. Lissauer accused RMG of copyright violation, computer fraud and racketeering. His attorneys dropped the Ohio lawsuit last week but say they plan to refile in federal court in Pittsburgh, where RMG has moved.
Even as they fight scalping, ticket brokers and teams are jockeying for part of the estimated $3 billion ticket-reselling pie.
This week, Ticketmaster said it was buying the nation's second-largest online ticket reseller, TicketsNow Inc.
Fehrs isn't completely out of luck. Her husband eventually bought two general-admission tickets to Springsteen's show at face value, Neupert said, but she still finds the experience unfair.
"It's as though the metered access lanes to freeways were open only to the highest bidder," Neupert said. "That's not an equitable way to allocate scarce resources."
Brent Hunsberger: 503-221-8359; brenthunsberger@news. oregonian.com; blog.oregonlive.com/playbooksandprofits
Access - A Portlander angered when tickets migrate to a resale site fights back with city statute
Wednesday, January 16, 2008BRENT HUNSBERGER The Oregonian Staff
Sharon Fehrs hopped online one Saturday morning last month to nab four seats near the stage for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's March 28 show at the Rose Garden.
She clicked and reclicked just as the tickets went on sale at 10 a.m., but couldn't find more than one seat available, her attorney says.
Minutes later, the longtime Springsteen fan noticed choice seats already available for sale on StubHub, an online ticket resale site. They were going for far in excess of their $95 face value.
Fed up, Fehrs filed a class-action lawsuit Jan. 9 against StubHub Inc., the nation's largest secondary ticket seller, and its parent, eBay Inc., the mammoth auction-site operator.
Her lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, alleges both companies violated the city of Portland's little-enforced anti-scalping law. She's asking the court to stop StubHub's practice and award damages to customers who opt into her lawsuit.
Fehrs declined to comment, but her attorney, John Neupert, said the Springsteen nut, who's seen the star live a half-dozen times, wants to ensure consumers have fair access to affordable seats at their favorite shows.
"She believes that StubHub and eBay operate an illegal secondary market that deprives people of an equitable opportunity to buy tickets at a reasonable price," said Neupert of Miller Nash in Portland.
Growing movement
Fehrs joins the vast and vocal fray developing around the resale of tickets to popular events such as Hannah Montana and -- these days, in this city -- Portland Trail Blazers games. In the past two years, the nation's largest ticket broker, a pro football team, a fan of pop band The Police and four state attorneys general have gone to court or launched investigations trying to rein in online ticket scalping.
A StubHub spokeswoman said the company, by policy, does not comment on pending legal matters.
Originally, tickets to Springsteen's concert in Portland went on sale on comcasttix.com for $65 to $95. Fans now can find them on StubHub for $103 to $1,000.
But StubHub and other secondary ticket reselling sites contend they are not ticket sellers but merely platforms where fans, can buy and sell tickets, and set their own prices.
Portland's anti-scalping ordinance bars anyone from reselling tickets for events at the Rose Garden and city-owned venues for more than the ticket's original retail price. Violators face a maximum $500 fine and six months in jail.
Rarely enforced
The ordinance is rarely enforced, judging by scalpers that work the sidewalk outside the Rose Garden before Trail Blazers games and city officials' admitted lack of experience with it.
"Nobody has really looked at that anti-scalping ordinance in a long, long time," said Jim Van Dyke, senior deputy city attorney for Portland and a 14-year veteran of the office. "It just hasn't come up."
He believes the ordinance was passed in 1977, the same year Portland won its only NBA title -- and well before the Internet spread.
Mike Golub, chief operating officer for the Trail Blazers, said it's unclear how the law applies to online transactions that might occur outside the city limits.
Golub said managers of the arena -- owned by Paul Allen -- try to enforce the city's anti-scalping ordinance on Rose Quarter grounds with its own security staff. But the team also has come to accept online ticket reselling, even providing an online resale site where season-ticket holders can auction tickets they can't use.
"From our standpoint, it's a marketplace that exists," Golub said. "If done the right way, it's a good thing."
Teams have taken varying approaches to online reselling, ranging from clamping down on scalping to using technology to nab some of the profits.
The New England Patriots, a perennial pro football powerhouse, sued StubHub in 2006, accusing the company of spurring fans to violate Massachusetts anti-scalping law. The case was settled.
Fan outrage also has prompted politicians to act. Last year, parents upset at being unable to get seats to Hannah Montana shows, performed by Miley Cyrus, 15, prompted attorneys general in Missouri, Arkansas, Connecticut and Pennsylvania to open investigations into ticket resellers.
Even the nation's largest ticket broker, Ticketmaster, won a court injunction last year against RMG Technologies Inc. after alleging RMG's software had helped scalpers get around a computer security program designed to bar automated ticket-buying programs. RMG President Cipriano Garibay told The New York Times that the company doesn't use sophisticated character-recognition software but instead pays workers in India $2 an hour to bypass the security measure. Attorneys suing RMG doubt that claim.
Class-action suit
Ticketmaster's lawsuit prompted Boaz Lissauer, a New Jersey resident who paid a reseller $195 for $65 tickets to a Police concert last year in New York City, to file a class-action lawsuit last month in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati against RMG. Lissauer accused RMG of copyright violation, computer fraud and racketeering. His attorneys dropped the Ohio lawsuit last week but say they plan to refile in federal court in Pittsburgh, where RMG has moved.
Even as they fight scalping, ticket brokers and teams are jockeying for part of the estimated $3 billion ticket-reselling pie.
This week, Ticketmaster said it was buying the nation's second-largest online ticket reseller, TicketsNow Inc.
Fehrs isn't completely out of luck. Her husband eventually bought two general-admission tickets to Springsteen's show at face value, Neupert said, but she still finds the experience unfair.
"It's as though the metered access lanes to freeways were open only to the highest bidder," Neupert said. "That's not an equitable way to allocate scarce resources."
Brent Hunsberger: 503-221-8359; brenthunsberger@news. oregonian.com; blog.oregonlive.com/playbooksandprofits
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Comments
I really think that in the future, all of these shows are going to be sold through some sort of auction.
You really can't stop scalping at this point, unless you let the market price the tickets.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln