BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 329
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 329 (Pan)
As Amended May 7, 2013
Majority vote
ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS 5-2 JUDICIARY
10-0
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Ayes:|Ian Calderon, Bloom, |Ayes:|Wieckowski, Wagner, |
| |Gomez, Levine, Wilk | |Alejo, Chau, Dickinson, |
| | | |Garcia, Gorell, |
| | | |Maienschein, Muratsuchi, |
| | | |Stone |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Waldron, Brown | | |
| | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
APPROPRIATIONS 16-1
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Ayes:|Gatto, Harkey, Bigelow, | | |
| |Bocanegra, Bradford, Ian | | |
| |Calderon, Campos, Eggman, | | |
| |Gomez, Hall, Rendon, | | |
| |Linder, Pan, Quirk, | | |
| |Wagner, Weber | | |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Donnelly | | |
| | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY : Provides that any person who intentionally uses or
sells software to circumvent a security measure, access control
system, or other control or measure on a ticket seller's
Internet Web site that is used to ensure an equitable ticket
buying process is guilty of a misdemeanor.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, potential minor non-reimbursable costs to cities and
counties for enforcement, offset to some extent by fine
revenues.
AB 329
Page 2
COMMENTS : According to the author, robotic ticket-buying
software ("bots") are designed to bombard online box office Web
sites with thousands of simultaneous purchase requests, thereby
bypassing the principle of first-in-line and creating instant
sellouts of events before the average fan has a chance to obtain
tickets. The author states that the entertainment industry has
continuously blamed "instant sellouts" on the unregulated use of
bots by scalpers, who then turn around and sell the tickets at
severely marked up prices, forcing fans to pay higher prices for
tickets without having had any opportunity to purchase a
face-value ticket from the ticket issuer or event organizer. To
address these problems, this bill would prohibit the use or sale
of robotic ticket-buying software, and making violations
punishable by a misdemeanor.
Technological attempts to combat robotic-ticket buying software
have not been entirely successful : According to the author, the
ticket industry has attempted to combat the problems caused by
bots by employing other technological means such as Completely
Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
(CAPTCHA) phrases and pictures tests at the point of sale during
the online transaction. Visitors to any ticket selling Web site
in recent years may recall having been instructed to view a
distorted image of a word or phrase and type the characters into
a response box before being allowed to purchase tickets on the
Web site. This type of CAPTCHA test is designed to prevent the
use of bots because the requested task is one that a person can
complete correctly in virtually every case, but is difficult for
a robotic software program to accurately perform. Variations of
CAPTCHA methods involve visual identification of common objects
like animals or fruit rather than words or phrases; in either
case, the idea is that correct responses to CAPTCHA requests can
be reliably presumed to have been entered by a person using the
ticket Web site, and not an automated software program.
According to supporters of the bill, however, these
technological efforts do not appear to have been very successful
because the problem of instant sellouts and increased resale
prices for tickets continues to generate complaints from the
ticket-buying public. This bill seeks to address the novel
problem caused by the rise of bot software by prohibiting the
use and sale of any software that "circumvents a security
measure, access control system, or other control or measure on a
seller's Internet Web site that is used to ensure an equitable
ticket buying process."
AB 329
Page 3
Recent amendments to the bill taken in the Assembly Arts,
Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committee
limit the bill to only the current prohibition of the sale or
use of robotic ticket buying software. Several professional
sports teams and other ticket sellers who previously opposed the
bill now support it, and there is no known opposition to the
current version of the bill.
Please see the Assembly Judiciary Committee analysis for a full
discussion of the current version of this bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Dana Mitchell / A., E., S., T. & I.M. /
(916) 319-3450
FN: 0000619