Huge News For The Music Business: Congress Bans Ticket-Scalpers

Woah! This is huge news for artists, promoters and venues. It gets true music fans the chance to get to their favorite show without paying an arm and a leg and prevents people who don't even like music from making a quick buck.

No more bots? No more computers buying out pre-sales before the actual fans can get to them? We're getting there. Congress today, passed a ban on certain tools that scalpers use that make sell-outs happen way too fast.

According to NPR:

The BOTS Act of 2016 is now on its way to President Obama's desk, after both houses of Congress approved the legislation that seeks to widen access to online ticket sales and foil scalpers who try to corner the market.

The ban applies to ticket sales for any public event that can be attended by 200 or more people; it targets software that routinely defeats attempts by venues to try to limit the number of tickets one buyer can purchase. It makes it illegal to circumvent limits on ticket sales — and also makes it illegal for anyone to sell tickets obtained by defeating online ticket sellers' access controls. The law extends to anyone who "knew or should have known that the event tickets were acquired in violation" of the federal rule.