{"id":7074,"date":"2025-12-02T00:57:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T00:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ticket-company-sued-taylor-swift-resales-ftc-lawsuit-tossed\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T00:57:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T00:57:29","slug":"ticket-company-sued-taylor-swift-resales-ftc-lawsuit-tossed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ticket-company-sued-taylor-swift-resales-ftc-lawsuit-tossed\/","title":{"rendered":"Ticket Reseller Sued by FTC Over Taylor Swift Eras Tour Scalping Moves to Dismiss\u00a0Case"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tKey Investment Group (KIG) is asking a federal judge to throw out a recently filed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit against the ticket resale company over alleged violations of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn August, the FTC filed suit against KIG<\/a>, alleging the company violated the BOTS Act when it purchased thousands of Taylor Swift<\/a> tickets for her 2023-2024 Eras Tour and resold them for more than $1 million in profit. The lawsuit was filed days before a similar complaint was filed against Ticketmaster<\/a> for allegedly refusing to enforce its own rules against scalpers and allowing unrestricted resale on its platform. Since then, Ticketmaster has made changes<\/a> to its resale policies and, like KIG, has argued that the FTC is misapplying the BOTS Act.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\tLONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 21: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO STANDALONE PUBLICATION USE (NO SPECIAL INTEREST OR SINGLE ARTIST PUBLICATION USE; NO BOOK USE)) Taylor Swift performs onstage during \"Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour\" at Wembley Stadium on June 21, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tFTC Sues Ticket Reseller Over Taylor Swift Eras Tour Scalping: \u2018Unscrupulous Middlemen\u2019\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tAustralia’s Parliament Passes Content Quotas For Streaming Video Platforms\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Olivia<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tTicketmaster Caps Resale Prices for Olivia Dean’s Tour Following ‘Disgusting Service’ Blast\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tThe FTC sued KIG<\/a> in August, alleging the Colorado-based ticket resale operation used networks of accounts, IP masking, SIM boxes and other technical tools to evade Ticketmaster\u2019s ticket-purchasing limits and acquire hundreds of high-demand tickets for resale. The agency claims these tactics \u201ccircumvented\u201d the ticketing giant\u2019s security controls in violation of the BOTS Act.<\/p>\n

\n\tKIG is the first of the two firms to file a motion to dismiss. In a sweeping 36-page missive filed on Nov. 24, KIG attorney Bezalel A. Stern<\/strong> with law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips argues that the FTC\u2019s complaint attempts to regulate long-established broker practices \u2014 like using multiple IP addresses to buy tickets or operating dozens of Ticketmaster accounts \u2014 that do not involve bots.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cKIG does not use bots. KIG does not circumvent any security measure,\u201d the company tells the court, arguing the FTC is attempting to impose an unprecedented interpretation of the law that contradicts the law\u2019s legislative history and the FTC\u2019s own prior guidance.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tTicketmaster to Ban Multiple Accounts, Shut Down TradeDesk After FTC\u00a0Lawsuit\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tStern stresses that the BOTS Act was explicitly drafted to stop \u201cmalicious computer code\u201d that lets bot operators overwhelm ticketing websites and jump ahead of human buyers. KIG argues that since it employs human buyers \u2014 not automated scripts \u2014 the law does not apply. \u201cWithout the use of bots, there can be no BOTS Act violation,\u201d KIG claims in the filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tKIG\u2019s brief also turns the FTC\u2019s own evidence against it. In its lawsuit, the FTC included Ticketmaster records showing the ticketing company tracked KIG\u2019s accounts and purchasing practices \u2014 even those created under alternate names \u2014 and knowingly allowed them. In a 2024 Ticketmaster email cited by the FTC, a Ticketmaster representative tells KIG that purchases made across different accounts are \u201cwithin guidelines\u201d so long as each individual account respects the posted per-account ticket limit. KIG\u2019s motion argues that email destroys the FTC\u2019s theory of unlawful \u201ccircumvention,\u201d because ticket brokers at KIG cannot \u201cavoid,\u201d \u201cevade\u201d or \u201cdeceive\u201d Ticketmaster\u2019s controls when Ticketmaster explicitly authorizes the behavior.<\/p>\n

\n\tKIG also highlights a contradiction between the FTC\u2019s case against it and the agency\u2019s separate September lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation. In that parallel case, the FTC alleges the ticketing company \u201cknowingly allows, and in fact encourages, brokers to use multiple Ticketmaster accounts.\u201d KIG argues the FTC cannot simultaneously claim Ticketmaster encourages multi-account purchasing while accusing KIG of \u201ccircumventing\u201d the very same rules.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Michael<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tFTC Sues Live Nation, Ticketmaster for Allowing Ticket Brokers to Break Its Rules for Profit: \u2018Directly Inflates\u00a0Prices\u2019\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tThe filing emphasizes that the FTC never alleges that KIG purchased tickets \u201cwithin seconds\u201d or at speeds indicative of automated software \u2014 the hallmark of bot activity described in past enforcement cases. According to KIG, the FTC is trying to convert everyday reseller practices into federal violations simply because they involve scale.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe FTC\u2019s cited evidence \u2014 including a bank audit, news reports and previous consent decrees involving actual bot operators \u2014 does not establish that KIG knew its conduct was illegal under the BOTS Act, KIG\u2019s motion claims.<\/p>\n

\n\tElsewhere in the motion, KIG alleges that the case began with a politically charged push by the White House to crack down on scalping. The company notes that minutes after President Trump \u2014 joined by Kid Rock<\/a> \u2014 signed a March 2025 executive order<\/a> demanding aggressive enforcement of the BOTS Act, the FTC sent KIG a draft complaint threatening litigation unless the company admitted wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\n\tKIG says the agency is now \u201cexpanding the BOTS Act far beyond its written and intended scope,\u201d and warns that if the FTC\u2019s theory were adopted, \u201cevery person or company who purchases tickets using more than one account\u201d could be accused of violating federal law.<\/p>\n

\n\tU.S. District Judge George L. Russell III will now consider the motion and whether to dismiss the government\u2019s case before discovery begins. If not, the FTC will proceed to try to prove that KIG\u2019s coordinated multi-account strategy amounted to illegal bot-level activity.<\/p>\n


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Key Investment Group (KIG) is asking a federal judge to throw out a recently filed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit against the ticket resale company over alleged violations of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[387,4639,1732,444,94,4504,4640,4506,4244,2576,450],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-ftc","category-lawsuit","category-legal-news","category-music-news","category-scalping","category-ticker-scalpers","category-ticket-scalping","category-ticketing","category-ticketmaster","category-touring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}