The artist management community yesterday seized the initiative on secondary ticketing by proposing the launch of a Resale Rights Society to regulate the concert ticket market.

The artist management community yesterday seized the initiative on secondary ticketing by proposing the launch of a Resale Rights Society to regulate the concert ticket market.

Whilst the UK government has shown an interest in touting and secondary ticket sales, they have put pressure on the live industry to do something about it itself - but the live industry has generally said that is powerless to do anything, and that the government should look to regulate ticket touting in music and entertainment (in a similar way to the regulations that exist in the football industry). Four 'government summits' have addressed the issue so far, and a select committee of the Department Of Culture, Media And Sport is currently investigating it further. The Music Managers' Forum, with support from the songwriters and music publishers collection societies the PRS and MCPS, has now decided to make its own proposals and have announced that a coalition of artist managers, who manage over 400 artists between them, including The Verve, Robbie Williams, Arctic Monkeys, KT Tunstall and Radiohead, are launching a new body called the Resale Rights Society which will aim to:

(i) provide music fans with some protection if and when they buy tickets from resellers and

(ii) ensure some of the profits of the secondary ticket market go back to the artists and live sector.

The society aims to do this by persuading the likes of eBay and ticket reselling sites to sign up to a 'kite-mark' scheme which would force them to make certain commitments to consumers (eg to have a refund policy if a gig is cancelled) and to commit to pass on a portion of their own profits to the society, which would distribute the monies to artists, songwriters and promoters. In return the ticketing sites would be legitimatised by the industry (or those parts of the industry signed up to the Society). The new society, which will be a not-for-profit membership organisation run by and for artists, managers and promoters, will be chaired by Marc Marot, a former Island Records chief and now manager of Yusuf Islam and Paul Oakenfold.

The RRS have said that  informal discussions with promoters and ticket agencies had been positive.

from CMU Daily http://www.thebeatsbar.co.uk