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Ticketmaster Wins Injunction against Ticket Ordering Software Co.
Ticketmaster LLC has obtained a preliminary injunction against RMG Technologies Inc. prohibiting the software company from providing its ticket ordering software used to bombard Ticketmaster’s Website to beat out consumers. Ticketmaster sued Pittsburgh-based RMG in Federal Court in Los Angeles in August, 2007.
With the assistance of a former ticket broker and user of RMG’s product, Ticketmaster convinced a US District Court judge that RMG infringed Ticketmaster’s copyright and violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the website’s terms of use. The software automates brokers to request 100s of tickets at a time. The software apparently also includes code to bypass order control mechanisms (e.g. type the code in the box tests) designed to verify that a human is placing the order.
Tickets for popular concerts often appear for re-sale at many times their face value at sites such as StubHub within minutes of going on-sale by Ticketmaster. The District Court judge concluded that RMG harmed Ticketmaster and the public because it denied consumers an opportunity to purchase the tickets at a fair price.
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