Online ticket reseller fails in internet immunity bid

An online ticket reseller in the US has been denied protection from liability for its users' actions. StubHub lost its claim that it was not responsible for its users breaking anti-touting laws because of evidence that it contributed to their acts. The US Communications Decency Act (CDA) contains, at Section 230, a protection …

[raving angry loony]

one down

Awesome, another scalper hopefully taken out. Now if they could only get rid of TicketsNow the world would be a better place.

[Greg Trocchia]

Summary Judgment Denial != Lost Case

Disclaimer- IANAL

The refusal of a motion for Summary Judgment simply means that the case can go to trial, not that Stub Hub has lost the case. From Stub Hub's point of view, they would have been happier had their motion been accepted, if it was they would have enjoyed automatic safe harbor protection, but they can still convince a judge or jury that they are not active participants in circumventing Massachusetts' anti-touting law.

[Chris C]

Bah

The Patriots' thoughts can be rephrased as such: "Waaah! They made more profit than we did!" That's all. They're unhappy that StubHub and the actual sellers are able to sell the tickets at a price point higher than the Patriots box office could, period. I hate scalpers as much as the next person, but if we're going to talk about it, let's at least be honest about it.

As for the Roommates discrimination case, I must strongly disagree with that. Discrimination in general is bad. Most of us can agree with that. However, when you're deciding who can sleep in the next room, share your living space, respect (or violate) your privacy, kill you in your sleep, etc, then yes, you SHOULD be able to choose. A lot of heterosexual men would be uncomfortable living with a gay man, and would be even more uncomfortable if that gay man invited his partner/lover over. Similarly, most gay people would not want to live with heterosexual people. I may get attacked for saying this, but there are SOME areas where discrimination should be allowed, and choosing who gets to live with you in your house is one of those areas. Bigotry is a bad thing, but people don't change the way they think and feel just because you want them to. Forcing someone to rent a room to someone they fundamentally oppose for any reason will only end badly, possibly violently.

[Matt Siddall]

$title

maybe I'm missing something here, but the crux of the argument seems to be:

1) by buying a ticket, you agree not to resell it except through the Patriots reseller

2) Stubhub allows people to buy and sell tickets

3) people sold their tickets through Stubhub.

So the people doing the selling broke their agreement. I fail to see what Stubhub have done wrong. They're surely not bound by agreements made by other people, which they may not even have been aware of, are they? Even if they were notified of the restrictions on ticket sales, they're not a party to the agreement. And even if they were construed somehow to be bound by this anti-competitive agreement that they had never signed or agreed to, surely that's simply a civil case...

Don't get me wrong, I dislike ticket scalpers as much as the next guy, but if the tickets are being resold at a higher price, then surely the price was too low to begin with. Supply, demand, markets, etc... Artificially restricting resales just causes problems.