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"so no matter how you look at it, these people are stealing from the artist."

If the gig sells out, the artist should be getting a full cut since there aren't any unsold sets, QED. If it turns out that bots purchased all of those tickets and there is lots of resale online and on-site with empty seats in the house, it's disappointing for the artist to see those empty seats, but they are still getting paid. Next time they know that they need to raise the price and those un-re-sold seats become a net loss to the speculators.

It can be hard to tell what the market price could be for a certain show in a given venue. Maybe tickets should be offered on a 3-day auction. You go online and pick your top 5 seat locations, the number of tickets you want (perhaps with a limit) and the top price you are willing to pay for each location. The auction software notes the top bidders for each block of seats, awards ties to the person who books first and you have a chance of getting your tickets at your price somewhere you won't mind. There could be minimum pricing on the choicest seats with those in the nose bleed sections starting at zero. Let's say the show doesn't sell out. Those seats starting at nothing may not bring in any seat money, but those people are still likely to buy food/drink/swag and parking. The band is also going to be playing to a full house, which always looks and feels good. As for artists making money, the swag is what rakes in the bucks. I did a back of the pad calculation for just T-shirt sales during the final Rush tour and chances were that the band could buy a new tour bus each every 2-4 shows on the profits. Income from the tickets was a rounding error.