Wednesday, December 14, 2016

The Economic Cyberbullying of Ticket Selling Sites



If there was ever a concert that exposed the depth of the rigged ticket selling system, it was the Tragically Hip.

Canadian emotions were high as they learned front man Gord Downie had been afflicted with terminal cancer. In order to give Hip fans one last chance to say goodbye, Downie mustered up his energy and the band embarked on a farewell tour throughout the country.

But the cold and uncaring scalper bots had something different in mind. The soaked up at least 2/3 of all the tickets and ceremoniously gouged the fans to the tune of $25 to $30 million.

It's like a big fuck you, Canada, and the Hip could do nothing about it, or maybe they could have.

Louis CK has warned fans that if they purchase tickets from resellers, those tickets would be invalidated and he might even cancel his performance.

Meanwhile Lewis Black has set up a F.U.C.K.U. membership site to take his ticket sales out of the hands of ticket bots and resellers.

More artists need to step up and take the control of their ticket sales out of the hands of selling sites like Ticketmaster, which admit they cannot stop bot sales.

There is a problem when an entertainer intends for his or her tickets to sell for $50, but the average fan can only acquire them for $120. Not only is it not fair, it's economic cyberbullying. 


Monday, December 5, 2016

Internet Privacy Is Now Dead in the UK



Government authorities spying on its people isn't really anything new. We expect it in places like China, Russia, Egypt, and many more countries abroad. But in so-called Western societies, the idea of freedom may be what the ideology stands on, but in practice, control is everywhere.

Besides what we know about the American NSA and Canada's CSIS agencies using overreaching tactics under the guise of "terrorism prevention," most of their spying has been covert, without any public policy in place.

Enter the United Kingdom. It's newly anointed Investigative Powers Bill publicly gives carte blanche permission for police and government to willy nilly spy on everyone and anyone with NO JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT.

Mitch Jackson talks about it more in Say Goodbye to Internet Privacy in the UK. Is the United States Next? – Streaming.Lawyer.