JAPANESE MPS TO TABLE ANTI-ONLINE TICKET TOUTING BILL

The Parliamentary Group on Live Entertainment aims to outlaw for-profit online resale ahead of the 2020 Olympics, bringing the law into line with the street selling ban.

A coalition of Japanese parliamentarians are to submit a bill to the House of Representatives to regulate Japan’s increasingly controversial online secondary ticketing market.

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) members of the Parliamentary Group on Live Entertainment met on 7 December to author the bill, which would mandate all tickets resold on the internet include information about the event’s date, time, location and seat number; a notice that resale of the ticket is prohibited; and that the promoter has taken measures to prevent the ticket’s resale, including by checking the identity of the ticket seller.

The proposed legislation would also classify resale of tickets above face value as fraud, similar to the ban on street ticket touts. There is currently no regulation of online ticket resale, which according to the International Ticketing Yearbook 2017 is a ¥50bn ($44m) market, with Ticket Camp – currently being investigated by the police for alleged breaches of competition law – the largest player.

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