THE Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism yesterday began enforcing sweeping anti-scalping regulations that expose ticket resellers to administrative penalties of up to 50 times their total sales and introduce cash rewards for tipsters who report violations.
The enforcement decrees, which are amendments to the Performance Act Enforcement Decree and the National Sports Promotion Act Enforcement Decree, took effect six months after the parent statutes were revised in February.
Under the previous law, only the resale of tickets originally purchased through macro programmes, which automatically and repeatedly input purchasing commands, was banned.
The revised framework scraps that narrow definition. Resellers now face penalties whether or not macro software was used anywhere in the transaction, and buyers who circumvent or disrupt a seller’s fair-purchase process in order to resell tickets face the same exposure.
The ministry described the two offences in the legislation as “fraudulent purchases” – bypassing an original seller’s fair-purchase process through technical means for the purpose of resale – and “fraudulent sale” – habitually or commercially reselling tickets above face value without the original seller’s consent.
Several categories fall outside the new rules’ scope. Movie tickets and accommodation vouchers are not covered, nor are fan-meeting tickets, which the ministry classifies as commercial promotions rather than public performances.
However, the ministry conceded that there was a loophole: Foreign nationals who carry out such transactions entirely outside the country are not subject to Korean law under the territoriality principle. — The Korea Herald/ANN
