Do These Guys Deserve to Go To Jail?
The are many comparisons to the following story and domaining.
It seems a company called Wiseguys Tickets Inc. figured out a way to beat Ticketmaster and other ticket vendors the moment tickets went on sale (think of domains dropping). Wiseguys set up an elaborate automated system to go after these names so they could get multiple amounts of tickets (think domains) and then resell them at a higher value. The ticketing companies had tried to stop this type of automation by using Captcha (random words that have to be retyped in) and limiting the amount of tickets any one person could buy. Wiseguys was one step ahead of them by figuring out how to beat the Captcha’s and setting up various companies to buy the tickets. These methods turned out to be very profitable for Wiseguys as it is reported that they made over $25 million over the few years that they have been doing this. Why do I think that the ticket companies are going after these guys?. Plain and simple, It’s about money. Recently ticket vendors have set up or partnered with resale sites so that the ticket vendors and the artists could make more money by selling the same type of tickets that Wiseguy sold (think registrar auctions and domain drop auctions). So do these wiseguys deserve to go to jail or should more oversight be placed on the ticket vendors (registrars) ?
Here is a link to one of the articles regarding Wiseguys.