First Day of Anti-Scalping Law: Unimaginable Loopholes Emerge

[Anchor]

With the anti-scalping law taking effect last month to prevent tickets from being resold at prices several times higher than face value, we took a closer look at what has changed and what its limitations are.

[Reporter]

First, individuals can now be subject to punishment even if they did not use macro programs.

Under the revised law, regardless of whether a macro program was used, two practices are strictly prohibited: "illegal sales," which involves habitually or commercially selling or brokering admission tickets at a premium, and "illegal purchases," which involves bypassing systems to purchase tickets for the purpose of resale.

Second, a penalty bomb of up to 50 times the face value.

In the past, penalties were limited to up to one year in imprisonment or a fine of up to 10 million won, leading to criticisms that paying the fine was simply the cost of doing profitable business.

With the latest revision, administrative fines of up to 50 times the total sales amount can be imposed.

Third, a reward system for reporting violations.

Informants can receive rewards of up to 50 million won for reporting illegal purchases, and up to 50 percent of the penalty imposed on the seller for reporting illegal sales.

This means the government intends to crack down on scalpers aggressively by utilizing reports from fans, rather than relying solely on direct government enforcement.

However, fans' frustration has only grown larger.

Controversy 1: Foreigners Residing Overseas Are Not Subject to Punishment

Because it is difficult to penalize foreign nationals living abroad under the principle of territoriality, controversy surrounding the scope of punishable subjects has rapidly spread.

In particular, after EXO concert tickets sold out in an instant on August 27, just a day before the anti-scalping law went into effect, scalping posts openly reselling tickets at prices several times higher than face value immediately appeared on Chinese social media, inevitably outraging domestic fans.

[Cho Hee-yoon / K-pop Fan: The biggest market for scalped tickets has originally been the Chinese market. There were so many photos and posts about scalped tickets.]

[K-pop Fan A: There must definitely be a way to catch them, but I think people are dissatisfied because they are letting it go and causing even worse damage.]

Controversy 2: Why Penalize Only Concert and Sports Tickets?

Another point of controversy is the scope of application of the anti-scalping law.

The revised Performance Act and National Sports Promotion Act limit regulatory targets strictly to admission and discount tickets for performances and sports matches, meaning other types of scalped tickets, such as movie tickets, hotel vouchers, and KTX train tickets, are not subject to reporting or punishment.

Controversy 3: The Criteria for Scalping Remain Ambiguous

[Chang Hyo-gang / Attorney Specialized in K-pop: I can answer from a legal standpoint, but when I look at it myself, it is too ambiguous. This is because "habitual" refers to a tendency to repeat a certain act. While it is hard to know such a tendency, "commercial" means conducting a trading activity as a business. Then, a single transaction could potentially be considered a business, or even three or four transactions might not be considered a business. So how are we supposed to handle this? In general cases, there are baseline guidelines, which are court precedents. Ultimately, I feel that a considerable amount of time will be needed for that, and to make it work, violations must be detected in a timely manner with very heavy penalties.]

The reality is that the closer you look, the more ambiguous the criteria are for what constitutes scalping, and actually catching and punishing every single violator is no easy task.

How can this problem be resolved?

The measure pointed out first by fans and experts alike is strong technological regulation against macro programs.

[K-pop Fan A: I think the biggest problem right now is that the focus has shifted more toward illegal transactions rather than macro programs. If macro programs continue to bypass systems while people are told not to engage in illegal purchasing either, it practically amounts to telling domestic fans not to bother going at all, so I think there is a real issue here.]

What ways are there to eradicate scalping and ensure that everyone can purchase tickets fairly?
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.