Ticketmaster has agreed to pay a $ 10 million fine after being repeatedly charged between 2013 and 2015 for illegally accessing a competitor’s computer systems in an attempt to ‘cut’ [the company] down on the knees. ‘
A subsidiary of Live Nation, the California-based ticket sales and distribution company, used the stolen information to take advantage of it CrowdSurge – which merged with Songkick in 2015 and was later acquired by Warner Music Group (WMG) in 2017 – by hiring a former employee to break into the instruments and gain insight into the company’s operations.
“Ticketmaster employees have repeatedly – and illegally – accessed a competitor’s computers without authorization using stolen passwords to illegally collect business information,” said acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme.
“Furthermore, Ticketmaster’s employees held a ‘whole’ section on which the stolen passwords were used to gain access to the victim’s computers, as if it were an appropriate business tactic.”
The allegations were first reported in 2017 after CrowdSurge Live Nation sued for antitrust infringement and accused Ticketmaster of having access to confidential business plans, contracts, customer lists and credentials of CrowdSurge tools.
According to court documents released on December 30, after Stephen Mead, who appointed CrowdSurge’s general manager of US operations in 2013 through Live Nation, shared the passwords with Zeeshan Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster’s artist services division. and another Ticketmaster employee shared. to Artist Toolbox, an app that provided real-time information on tickets sold by the victim company.
In addition to password theft, Mead is also accused of providing “internal and confidential financial documents” of his former employer, as well as web page concept card URLs to find out which artists plan to use CrowdSurge to sell tickets and “discourage”. to do it.
On October 18, 2019, Zaidi pleaded guilty in a related case to conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and fraud for his participation in the scheme, saying: ‘We are not supposed to deny anyone that we have this view [the victim company’s] activities. “
An unnamed Ticketmaster manager said in an internal email that the goal was to “suffocate” and “steal” his signature customers by winning back the pre-sale ticket business for a second major artist who is a customer of CrowdSurge was.
Both Mead and Zaidi are no longer employed by Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster had earlier settled a lawsuit by Songkick in 2018 by agreeing to pay the owners of the company $ 110 million and acquire the remaining intellectual property not sold to WMG for an unknown amount.
In addition to the $ 10 million fine, Ticketmaster is expected to maintain a compliance and ethics program to detect and prevent such unauthorized access to confidential information belonging to its competitors.
The company will also be required to file an annual report with the U.S. Attorney’s Office over the next three years to ensure compliance.