Report: Ticketmaster To Pay $10 Million Fine Following Songkick Legal Dispute
According to a report by The New York Times, Ticketmaster has ended a lengthy legal dispute with ticketing competitor Songkick, paying a $10 million fine in addition to a $110 million settlement, dating back to 2018.
“We are pleased that we were able to resolve this dispute and avoid protracted and costly legal proceedings, while also acquiring valuable assets,” Live Nation president Joe Berchtold said in 2018, noting that Ticketmaster did receive some of the competitor’s “technology assets and patents” amidst the proceedings.
However, now that the case is completely resolved, The New York Times paints a more complete picture of what went down, including “accusations of corporate espionage.”
The report claims that malicious computer intrusions were “spearheaded by a former Songkick employee who left the start-up in 2012 and later started working for Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation. The employee was said to have disseminated Songkick’s login information to other Ticketmaster employees so they could access an app called an artist toolbox, which provided data on purchases of presale tickets through Songkick, the documents said. The employee also was accused of sharing URLs that led to drafts of Songkick’s ticketing web pages.”
Allegedly, Ticketmaster’s objective was to “choke off” Songkick’s resources while “stealing back” clients.
“Their actions violated our corporate policies and were inconsistent with our values,” Ticketmaster said on Dec. 30, referring to the accused employee. “We are pleased that this matter is now resolved.”
Additionally, Ticketmaster has been charged with “one count of computer intrusion for commercial advantage and one count of wire fraud.”
