Sen. Chuck Schumer and Hamilton composer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda are dueling together to fight a tricky Broadway menace – ticket bots.
At a joint press conference, the politician and the entertainer who writes about politicians asked congress to pass a bill to stop web scalpers – known as “ticket bots” – from cornering the market on live shows.
The proposed federal legislation – which Schumer says he will introduce in September – will assign an investigative task force to track the owners of the online bots and charge the criminals $16,000 for each ticket they resell.
“This is a very simple issue,” said Miranda. “There is no disincentive for people who use bots.”
The Pulitzer Prize winner – his wildly popular “Hamilton” won this year for Best Drama – said customers shouldn’t be intercepted and ripped-off by robots when they’re simply trying to buy tickets to a show.
“It’s hard to get tickets to anything, but while you’re typing in your CAPTCHA code, that bot has already got the ticket that you’re trying to get and it’s just not fair. We need to at least begin to level the playing field.”
Miranda alluded to the basic rights and freedoms the US Constitution is meant to protect.
“My concern is that our show is about the founding of our country and if bots are buying up all the tickets and charging this insane secondary market price, most of the country can’t see it.”
Schumer pointed out that would-be customers have been calling his office to complain tickets to their favorite show, concerts or sporting events are sold out within seconds after being posted for sale.
He blamed the bots – a sophisticated automated software used by third-party brokers that grabs all the tickets, and then re-sells them at inflated prices – which are still not illegal because they’re computers.
The new bill would impose enormous fines on users of the software and “put them out of business,” he said.
“Just think, if the starting price for a ticket to Hamilton is $189 but the bots are selling for anywhere from $600 to $2000 a ticket, just think how much the people make.”
“Consumers, the live theater and music industry, the ticket sellers, they’re on our side. Everyone is on our side except these bots.”