Press Release
4 December 2007
Artist managers form Resale Rights Society to regulate secondary ticketing market
Artists must receive a fair share
Music fans need protection
Artist management organisations behind more than 400 performing artists, including the Verve, Robbie Williams, Arctic Monkeys, KT Tunstall and Radiohead are banding together in an attempt to resolve the long-running controversy over the online secondary market in concert tickets.
The artist management organisations, in a movement led by the Music Managers’ Forum (MMF), aim to unite the live music industry in a new Resale Rights Society which will license the currently-unregulated secondary ticketing market on sites such as eBay, Viagogo, Seat Exchange, Seatwave and GetMeIn.
The Resale Rights Society has two primary aims: first, to ensure music fans are protected from unscrupulous or bogus resellers through the introduction of a “kite-mark” scheme for ticketing sites; second to ensure that artists and the live music industry share in the proceeds of resold tickets.
Resale Rights Society Chairman-elect Marc Marot - manager of Yusuf Islam and Paul Oakenfold and former Chief Executive of Island Records - said, “The secondary ticketing market offers benefits to music fans and the live music industry alike. It does not make sense to try and criminalise it. On the other hand there are not only real issues of consumer protection here, it is unacceptable that not a penny of the estimated £200m in transactions generated by the resale of concert tickets in the UK is returned to the investors in the live music industry. Where this trade is fair to consumers, we propose to authorise it by agreeing a levy on all transactions.”
The MMF initiative comes after four government summits on the issue and shortly before the Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, chaired by John Whittingdale is expected to announce the results of its own Inquiry into secondary ticketing.
Protecting fans
Concerns have been raised not only about the failure of the ticket exchanges to share any of the proceeds of the booming business with the artists whose tickets they sell, but also about the lack of any agreed standards of consumer protection.
One result of the lack of regulation of the secondary ticketing market, for instance, is that if a tour is cancelled, fans can lose out substantially.
Jazz Summers, Chairman of the Music Managers Forum and the manager of The Verve said, "The industry needs to stand together and ensure that our artists and the fans are not exploited by operators of online ticket exchanges."
In addition to the support of the performing artist community, the initiative has been welcomed by the Performing Right Society, which represents 50,000 songwriters’ interest in income generated from the live sector.
PRS and MCPS Chief Executive, Steve Porter, said: "Live performance is a significant source of income for PRS's 50,000 songwriter and publisher members, yet they - and many other industry stakeholders - currently receive nothing from secondary sales of concert tickets. PRS welcomes the RRS as an exciting and innovative industry solution to this problem and looks forward to working together with them on the issue."
Marot said that informal soundings with promoters, major booking agencies and operators of the online ticketing exchanges suggested that there is an emerging consensus behind the Society’s goals.
“This is a problem that should be resolved through self-regulation,” he said. “The online ticketing exchanges have consistently claimed that they wish to work with artists and the live music industry. This Society presents them with that opportunity.”
Owned by artists
The Resale Rights Society is expected to hold its inaugural board meeting by the end of January 2008 and aims to have finalised its agreements with online ticket exchanges by the end of March 2008.
The Society, a not-for-profit organisation, will be a company limited by guarantee and controlled by its Ordinary Members, the artists themselves. The Society’s operations will be managed by its Corporate Members, which will include artist managers, promoters, booking agents and the Performing Right Society.
The RRS will lead and coordinate a revision of standard terms and conditions for concert tickets that makes it clear that tickets may only be resold through RRS-authorised ticket exchanges.
Ticket exchanges will be authorised to resell tickets on the basis of a levy on all transactions. That money will then be distributed to the promoter, the booking agent, the artists and the Performing Right Society (on behalf on songwriters) in a scheme to be agreed at the inaugural board meeting.
Online ticketing exchanges who re-sell tickets without paying the levy may open themselves up to legal action.
The RRS is also seeking legislative change to give artists a legal right to a share in the proceeds of resold tickets – modelled on the Artist's Resale Right Legislation introduced for visual artists and sculptors in 2006.
-ENDS-
More information
Steve Redmond 07770 924 720 or steveredmond@btinternet.com
Notes to Editors
The Resale Rights Society is an initiative of the Music Managers’ Forum (MMF);
The MMF was formed in 1992 and now represents over 400 management organisations who between them manage more than 1,500 acts;
MMF members manager not just performers, but songwriters and record producers too;
Managers are advisors to artists and are in many cases the primary decision makers in most commercial situations. A Manager is a counsellor, motivator, deal-maker, protector and the only member of the business team who is wholly linked with the Artist;
As an organisation, the members of the MMF and the Artists they represent are integral to the future success of British popular music.