The latter deserve to be fed to Reavers.
Just because it can never be said too much.
'Shells'
Discussion of the Mutant Enemy series, Firefly, the ensuing movie Serenity, and other projects in that universe. Like the other show threads, anything broadcast in the US is fine; spoilers are verboten and will be deleted if found.
The latter deserve to be fed to Reavers.
Just because it can never be said too much.
Why shouldn't people sell their speed of access to other people willing to pay for it?
Why is ticket scalping illegal? It's the exact same thing.
That's my question, isn't it? Reselling tickets is not malum in se; it's not even illegal in most places.
Scalping is illegal in Massachusetts. There was a whole big thing over tickets to Fenway Park -- the Fenway owners will help re-sell unwanted season tickets, but they have to resell them at face value (plus a service charge). Whereas, other parks in other states have their own, corporate reselling service that marks up the tickets like whoa.
In the latter case, although formally 40% of the tickets cost, say, $20 or less, in reality huge blocks of tickets are designated automatically to the reselling service, which sell them at 500% of face value. So, in effect, the "40% of our tickets are affordable!" claim is a lie.
(In the case of baseball, there's a whole "public good" issue, because of the antitrust exemption under which the enterprise works. So, since the public good is not served by tickets being wildly unaffordable to your average Jane, there are constant and persistent rumblings about this. In MA, not nearly the amount of rumblings.)
I also know for the Patriots that if you are caught reselling your season tickets, they will cancel your season tickets permanently.
if you are caught reselling your season tickets, they will cancel your season tickets permanently.
Pretty typical example, but it doesn't get to why. (I'm not bon bon, but I've wondered about this for eons.)
Pretty typical example, but it doesn't get to why. (I'm not bon bon, but I've wondered about this for eons.)
I'd say it's not dissimilar to the reason for all the warnings and disclaimers on fanfic. If there's a profit to be made off the game or broadcast thereof, it's not yours to make.
Why is scalping offensive?
The tickets are rare, and in demand, and therefore valuable. If the issuers wanted to sell them at auction or "for all the market will bear" they could have done so and reaped the value created by the rarity. To sell them instead for a flat nominal sum is a kindness, and for a purchaser to turn around and re-sell the ticket for a profit is an abuse of that kindness.
In the case of the Patriots, or any private org that sells tickets, it's the Patriots who want to make the profit, rather than hand the profit off to anybody with an eBay account. I know that broadway shows were experimenting with selling a small block of tickets at $500 each, ridiculous prices, because they figured, better the last-minute charlie buy their ridiculously expensive tickets from the box office than from Creepy Dave on the street.
I am a big fan of the block of cheap day-of tickets. I know in Britain they've been used to drum up business for otherwise-scantily-attended plays, and such. Actually, at Fenway, day-of you can get in line and buy any ticket not already sold in the whole stadium -- and then you have to enter the stadium immediately, so you can't scalp the ticket you just bought.