Why state-level governance—not hole federal requirements—will decide whether or not ticketing legislation works.
California’s AB 1349 displays a rising consensus that abusive ticketing practices—significantly speculative ticket listings—are structural market failures demanding authorized intervention. The invoice takes significant steps to handle deception in ticket resale markets and aligns California with a broader nationwide reassessment of ticketing legislation.
On the similar time, AB 1349 illustrates each the strengths and the boundaries of incremental reform. When considered alongside the Texas Ticket Sale Transparency and Client Safety Act, a mannequin invoice developed by the Artist Rights Institute (ARI) and nonetheless beneath energetic improvement, the comparability highlights a deeper coverage query: what stage of presidency is greatest positioned to manage ticketing markets successfully—and the way far should the legislation go to stop evasion relatively than merely condemn abuse?
I. What AB 1349 Will get Proper
AB 1349 targets probably the most corrosive practices in trendy ticketing: speculative ticketing, or itemizing tickets on the market with out possession or a contractual proper to acquire them. This observe exploits the hole between tour bulletins and onsales, when demand is highest and shoppers are least capable of confirm legitimacy.
Three options of AB 1349 are significantly vital.
First, the invoice attracts a brilliant factual line.
By prohibiting the sale of tickets a vendor doesn’t have, AB 1349 restores a primary precept of economic legislation: stock should exist earlier than it may be bought. This reframing issues as a result of it shifts the controversy away from value controls or market ideology and towards truth-in-advertising and fraud prevention.
Second, AB 1349 treats ticketing abuse as deception, not innovation.
The invoice focuses on deceptive representations—false shortage, deceptive resale designations, and listings that suggest availability the place none exists. This method acknowledges that client hurt in ticketing markets usually arises not from resale itself, however from info arbitrage engineered at scale.
Third, the invoice emphasizes public enforcement.
Somewhat than relying totally on personal litigation, AB 1349 locations enforcement authority within the arms of state and native officers. Given the technical complexity and cross-border nature of ticket resale platforms, this allocation of duty displays sensible actuality.
Taken collectively, these provisions make AB 1349 a severe consumer-protection measure relatively than a symbolic gesture.
II. The Limits of Incremental Reform
Regardless of these strengths, AB 1349 stops wanting addressing a number of structural issues which have traditionally undermined ticketing regulation.
Most notably, platform accountability stays oblique. Whereas speculative listings are prohibited, the invoice doesn’t impose clear, affirmative obligations on resale platforms to design methods that stop such listings from showing within the first place. Expertise means that reactive takedown regimes are ill-suited to high-velocity digital marketplaces the place hurt happens earlier than enforcement can meaningfully intervene.
As well as, AB 1349 doesn’t squarely confront jurisdictional and contractual evasion. Ticketing platforms have repeatedly used phrases of service, arbitration clauses, and choice-of-law provisions to dilute or defeat state client protections. Though California courts are sometimes skeptical of those techniques, AB 1349 doesn’t explicitly foreclose them.
Lastly, the invoice depends on standard cures—injunctions, civil penalties, restitution—that could be inadequate the place violations are repeated, coordinated, or insulated by way of company restructuring.
These limitations don’t negate AB 1349’s worth. However they clarify why further legislative improvement is critical.
III. The Precept of Subsidiarity—and the Failure of Federal “Really feel-Good” Requirements
Earlier than turning to the Texas mannequin, you will need to handle what AB 1349 just isn’t: it’s not one other federal-style normal that appears sturdy on paper however weak in observe.
The BOTS Act is the cautionary instance. Enacted with broad bipartisan help, the Act promised to curb automated ticket shopping for. In observe, it has been sporadically enforced, technologically outdated, and simply circumvented. The outcome has been a false sense of regulatory accomplishment mixed with minimal real-world influence.
This expertise argues strongly for a precept of subsidiarity in ticketing regulation:
the place harms are native, markets are heterogeneous, and enforcement requires proximity and institutional data, state and native governments are sometimes higher positioned than federal businesses to behave successfully.
AB 1349 matches inside this subsidiarity framework. The Texas mannequin pushes it additional.
IV. The Texas Mannequin: A Governance-First Method
The Texas Ticket Sale Transparency and Client Safety Act is a mannequin statute developed by the Artist Rights Institute (and launched on the Leisure Regulation Institute in Austin final 12 months) as a part of an ongoing coverage effort to design enforceable, scalable ticketing regulation. It isn’t a completed invoice, nor has it been enacted. As an alternative, it’s supposed as a framework that displays classes discovered from prior state and federal failures.
A number of options distinguish the Texas method.
1. Platform duty is express.
The mannequin assigns strict legal responsibility to resale platforms for speculative listings until they implement efficient, proactive compliance measures. This aligns obligation with technical management and discourages enterprise fashions that revenue from ambiguity.
2. State jurisdiction is preserved.
The Texas framework expressly supplies that state courts retain unique jurisdiction over ticketing claims and that statutory rights can’t be waived by phrases of service or comparable agreements. This instantly addresses the procedural mechanisms platforms have used to neutralize consumer-protection statutes.
3. Ticketing abuse is built-in into current fraud legislation.
By folding ticketing violations into Texas’s Misleading Commerce Practices Act, the mannequin ensures entry to enhanced cures, personal rights of motion, and cumulative enforcement instruments.
4. Repeated violations are handled as organized misconduct.
The mannequin acknowledges that persistent, coordinated ticketing schemes might rise to the extent of organized fraud, with entry to forfeiture and injunctive reduction the place applicable.
5. Chapter just isn’t an escape hatch.
The Texas framework anticipates insolvency-based evasion by treating willful ticketing fraud as non-dischargeable and authorizing equitable cures resembling constructive trusts and disgorgement.
V. What the Comparability Reveals
AB 1349 demonstrates that California is ready to confront misleading ticketing practices instantly. The Texas mannequin illustrates how that dedication might be translated into sturdy market governance.
The distinction just isn’t between proper and flawed approaches, however between first-generation reform and second-generation design. Transparency guidelines matter. However with out jurisdictional certainty, platform accountability, and enforcement mechanisms that anticipate evasion, transparency alone is inadequate.
VI. The Pattern
The lesson of AB 1349, the BOTS Act, and the rising Texas framework is obvious: efficient ticketing regulation have to be enforceable, native, and structurally knowledgeable.
Somewhat than pursuing further federal requirements that threat repeating the BOTS Act’s destiny, policymakers ought to empower states to handle ticketing abuses the place they happen, utilizing instruments that mirror trendy platform economics.
California has taken an vital step. The Texas mannequin—nonetheless beneath improvement by the Artist Rights Institute—provides a glimpse of what the subsequent step can appear like.
Comparability: California AB 1349 vs. Texas ARI Mannequin Invoice
| Feature | California AB 1349 | Texas Mannequin Invoice |
| Speculative Ticketing | Prohibited | Prohibited with platform strict legal responsibility |
| Platform Duties | Oblique / reactive | Affirmative proactive compliance required |
| Jurisdiction | Not expressly protected | Unique state courtroom jurisdiction |
| Phrases of Service Override | Not express | Statutory rights non-waivable |
| Personal Proper of Motion | Restricted | Specific and cumulative |
| Organized Fraud | Not addressed | Repeat violations handled as organized exercise |
| Chapter Evasion | Not addressed | Non-dischargeability and equitable cures |
| Standing | Launched / pending | Mannequin invoice beneath improvement by ARI |
