We’ve been covering the debates and legislation around secondary-ticketing reform in the UK and US. Now Germany is also seeing a step-up in calls from the music industry for change.
Industry bodies Pro Musik and BDKV have published an open letter to Germany’s federal government, signed by artists including Die Toten Hosen, Nina Chuba and Die Ärzte.
“The core demand of the open letter is the regulation of the secondary ticket market, so that fans, artists and the industry are protected from price gouging and fraud,” explained Pro Musik in its announcement.
You can find the open letter here, although it’s in German. We’ve been at it with Google Translate, naturally.
“This money doesn’t go to the artists or the event industry. It doesn’t go towards producing new music, fair wages, or the next tour. It ends up in the pockets of middlemen who contribute nothing to culture but exploitation,” claims the letter about resold tickets
It goes on to describe Germany as “a virtually unregulated space for ticket speculators” compared to France, the UK, Belgium and Italy. “This is a political failure that the entire live music industry and its fans feel every day.”
As in the UK, the current German government has previously promised to regulate the secondary-ticketing market with price caps, transparency obligations and a reporting system for platforms. The open letter sets out how it wants the government to implement those in a draft law.
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