Pennsylvania House tackles ‘bot’ problem that left Swifties ticketless for Eras Tour

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Monday passed legislation that seeks to avoid the difficulty Taylor Swift fans encountered this year when they tried to buy tickets to her Eras Tour.

By a vote of 193-10, the chamber sent to the Senate a bill that would make it illegal to use or sell software, better known as bots, designed to circumvent online ticket sales systems so the tickets can be sold on the secondary market at much higher prices.

“Last year, thousands of Pennsylvanians filed complaints with the attorney general’s office regarding issues in the ticketing pre-sale for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour that resulted in Ticketmaster canceling the public sale of concert tickets,” said Rep. Steve Malagari, D-Montgomery County, the bill’s sponsor. “Some people were thinking that the system was breaking down, that there’s been a glitch. But it wasn’t a brief interruption or a slight malfunction.”

It was actually bots that were scooping up the presale tickets at speeds faster than consumers could buy them and scalpers then attempting to sell them for up to $28,000, he said.

“Consumers literally cannot compete or buy tickets as quickly as the bots,” Malagari said.

His bill, which has the support of Ticketmaster as well as artists and festival organizers among others, updates a 2010 state law prohibiting ticket purchasing software to cover the new scam tactics that allow the bots to jump ahead in the line to buy tickets.

It allows for operators who provide online ticketing to file civil action against individuals who use or make available the unlawful software and to seek damages, plus $1,000 for each ticket sale made in violation of the law.

Malagari’s bill easily won the chamber’s passage but both he and Rep. Jennifer O’Mara, D-Delaware County, found it hard to resist working some of Swift’s song lyrics and song titles into their floor remarks from “players gonna play, play, play, play, play” to ” no body no crime ” and “twin flame bruises.”

Even House Speaker Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia, couldn’t help herself by calling on Malagari to “shake it off ” and did a little dance move at the rostrum.