No.164 / Jun 12, 2023
Older Brother KW: Hey, Zeewoo! The day is comming soon! The 2nd generation Michael Jackson, King of pop, the guy who is perfect in everything but height! Bruno Mars is comming! I’m so excited and nervous! I love you, bro! How did you get the ticket?
Younger Brother ZW: Haha bro, you still don’t know me as your brother? It’s me, Kang! Zee! Woo!.. Just kidding. I bought scalp tickets because I missed the chance. It costs more than double. Jesus, I starved three days for this.
According to the situation above, the Kang brothers will go to see a Bruno Mars concert for double the price. They eagerly participated in ticketing for two days through a competition rate of 1.16 million people, but they failed. However, the younger of the Kang brothers really wanted to see the concert of the king of pop, ended up buying a ticket for double the price. Younger Kang finally felt both the joy of seeing Bruno Mars and the anger that he had paid twice price for it. Then, is there no way in Korea to prevent this situation that they experienced legally? In simple words, half is possible and half is impossible. Yet, it is different if scalper sell it online. It is illegal to engage in such commercial activities “in the place where you enter or board” under the law, and transactions in other places are not applicable. In other words, in the case of trading online for earning money, the above place requirements are eliminated and do not belong to the ticket referred to in the law. If this situation worsens, there is a possibility of applying the crime of unjust enrichment and obstruction of business under criminal law. However, since these laws are very difficult to apply, general ticket sales are only cracked down on by law in police practice, and it is difficult to punish them by law if they are traded online and handed over tickets elsewhere.
Nevertheless, we do not need to simply criticize the act of scalping. This is because N. Gregory Mankiw also explained that ticket scalping can have an economic benefit effect. However, it can betray and damage the efforts of people living to enjoy the concert purely by using macros, offering prices that exceed twice the cost, purchasing for investment only for the purpose of resell. Thus, the government should revise the legislation that imposes taxes on resell investment activities, or prohibits scalp ticket sales. When we think of stocks or real estate, which is a product that we typically call investment, there exists a mutual benefit between the government and the individual through the payment of taxes and through investments. However, this act of scalping is considered morally wrong because it harms others, does not bring any benefits to the government, and only one individual gains the benefits of the “sale”. On that note, appropriate action is needed accordingly.
By Kang Zee-woo, AG Cub Reporter
zeewoo9177@ajou.ac.kr