Ticketmaster’s nontransferable ‘SafeTix’ are anticompetitive, DOJ suit claims

The real intent of Ticketmaster’s push for nontransferable tickets was to make it harder for fans to use rival platforms like StubHub and SeatGeek, the newly updated complaint in the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, alleges. The complaint, which was amended on Monday after 10 states joined the DOJ’s lawsuit, cites internal Ticketmaster documents obtained during the legal process.

In 2019, Ticketmaster rolled out SafeTix, which replaced static barcodes on electronic tickets with encrypted barcodes that refresh every 15 seconds. Ticketmaster marketed SafeTix as a way of reducing ticket fraud, but the complaint claims reducing competition was “a primary motivation” for the…

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