Fine for a man in his 30s who booked over 1,100 tickets using macros
‘Resale’ legally banned under the Performance Act starting next year
A man in his 30s who purchased a large number of tickets using a macro (automatic input repetition) program was criminally punished.
According to the legal community on the 19th, Judge Kang Seong-su of the Criminal Division 1 at the Seoul Western District Court sentenced Lee, who was indicted on charges of obstruction of business, to a fine of 5 million won on the 9th.
Lee purchased 1,215 performance tickets between January and July of last year, booking up to several dozen tickets at once using a macro program at a PC bang.
By using a macro program, multiple steps of information required for booking are automatically entered, allowing rapid reservation of performance tickets.
Lee used the macro program to input date, seat, and payment information all at once, created accounts under his family members' names, and booked tickets for popular plays and musicals.
During pop singer Bruno Mars' concert in Korea last April, scalping was caught with tickets being traded for 180 million won. [Image source=Provided by Hyundai Card]
The ticketing site operator limited ticket purchases to a maximum of six per person and used security programs to monitor automatic inputs.
Certain performances had conditions that tickets could not be transferred and had to be collected on-site after identity verification.
Lee claimed, "I did not purchase tickets to resell them as scalped tickets, and out of the 1,215 tickets, I ultimately purchased only 530," but this was not accepted.
The court ruled that Lee violated the booking site's policies and obstructed the business operations of the company.
Meanwhile, under current law, offline scalping is considered a minor offense, but there are no regulations to punish online scalping.
According to the Korea Creative Content Agency, reports of online scalping increased sharply from 359 cases in 2020 to 785 in 2021, and 4,224 last year. The industry believes that scalpers’ methods have become more sophisticated and specialized, operating like large-scale criminal organizations.
During pop singer Bruno Mars' concert in Korea held last April, scalping activities were caught where eight tickets were being traded for 180 million won, causing controversy.
In response, an amendment to the Performance Act banning the resale of tickets purchased using macros at a markup passed the National Assembly in February and is scheduled to take effect in March next year.
The amendment adds a clause prohibiting the fraudulent sale of admission tickets using programs that automatically repeat order commands on information and communication networks. Violators face imprisonment of up to one year or a fine of up to 10 million won.
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