Latest / Kvetch & Release / 610 CKTB | Digital Serfdom: How Ticketmaster-Live Nation Monopolize Nostalgia for Wealth Extraction

Transcript

610 CKTB | Digital Serfdom: How Ticketmaster-Live Nation Monopolize Nostalgia for Wealth Extraction · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: He's Genevelias on six ten CKTV, Niagrez News and Talk.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: All right, our pal John Letke is back and of
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: course he writes for cavech and Release. Just love that title.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Good morning John, morning Jen. Hey, listen, you're calling and
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: we're talking about ticket Master here and Live Nation and
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: everything that has gone on in the US. The Attorney's
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: General of many states in America are trying to break
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: up that company. Now you're calling for a total overhaul
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: of how we buy our own culture, in other words,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: tickets and stuff like that. So are we really just
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: surfs in the ticket Master digital kingdom? I guess we
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: could say, because if you look at the facts and
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: the figures, if you go back to say, nineteen seventy five,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: my first year in university, the Stones played Toronto. Tickets
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: were seven dollars and seven dollars. Yeah, Now inflation says
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: then they should be forty five dollars today, but they're
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: way more than three hundred and fifty four hundred and
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: five hundred. What happened?
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Gina, it is wild. We're not just surfs.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: We're digital sharecroppers. Here in the seventies, you bought a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: ticket you put it in your pocket and it was
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: your physical property. You owned that. Today you're paying a
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: forty five percent VIG for the privilege of a temporary
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: digital license that can be revoked, refreshed, or restricted at
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a moment's notice. We've created sovereignty for rotating QR codes.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: We pay through the nose for the leash. It's not evolution.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: It's a high tech enclosure of the commons. But you know,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: my mom saw it was Keith Richards at the time. Sorry,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: when I did the setup, I was a little bit off.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I did a bit more research on it. Keith Richards
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: got arrested and for heroin possession in Canada. He had
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: to do a benefit concert for the blind. So it
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: wasn't a Stones show. It was a Keith Richards show
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and it was an Oshawa, but it was a ten
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: dollars ticket. She got to sit on stage for it.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: So I mean that would be three forty five today,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: but three point fifty for nosebleat. So look at the
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: app right now. You can barely get in the door
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: for those hundreds. And if our gross bills rose that much,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a leader of milk would be costing forty five bucks today.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: That's systemic wealth extraction, it's not inflation.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, when that trial was ongoing in the US,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: they released some slack messages of senior executives bragging about how, quote,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: we're robbing the fans blind. So I don't know if
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: it was narcissism or if it was a confession, or
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: if it was just bragging, you know.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Gina is a great scene in the movie The Big
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Short about the subprime mortgage crisis, and they're doing investigation
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: into how the whole housing market crashed, and a couple
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of real letters are you know, talking about how they're
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: ripping off immigrants and newcomers to the country, And the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: investigator go, why are they confessing, And they go, they're
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: not confessing, they're bragging. So that is the problem. It's
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the same thing here. They're calling their customers stupid. The
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: mask hasn't slipped off, it's incinerated. This is a mob
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: style operation with a Silicon Valley paint job. Some could
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: say they're not providing a service. It's more like a
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: protection racket where they charge you the fee to protect
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: you from the very scalpers that they host in the
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: back room of the venue. It's all just disguised as
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: a user experience, wrapped up as goodfellas well.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Speaking of user experience, I think anybody who's ever attended
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: a concert, or has attempted to attend a concert, has
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: gone through the I'm online, it's nine fifty nine and
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: thirty seconds twenty ten o'clock. Grab your credit card. Yes,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I want to be sold out everything. And then lo
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: and behold, you go onto one of those secondary seller
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: markets and the tickets you wanted to buy for three
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: hundred bucks are now three thousand bucks. Now. Doug Ford
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: had an anti scalper love, then they got rid of it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Now it was brought back in last year. So Ontario
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: has thirty two investigators on a World Cup enforcement blitz.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: So is is that a real crackdown or just political feeder.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I want to believe it's real, gene, but this does
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: reek of theatrical performative optics. Just look at the quiet hands, right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: The government is always happy to play the hero, but
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: they're also a silent partner because they pocket the HST
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: on every single one of these hyper inflated tickets. So
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: it's not in their bottom line to actually be the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: good guy. It's hard to be the sheriff when you're
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: collecting a cut of the heist. If they want to
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: prove it's not theater, they need to drop the hammer
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: on these monopolistic platforms, not just some guy in a
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: basement and welland trying to pay his rent.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Now I found that's interesting. You say we don't own
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: our tickets anymore. So I mean, what are the dangers
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: of things like rotating QR codes, etc. You call them
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: a digital leash. I don't quite get that. What's that mean?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Well, they tell you that this is for security, but
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: it's really about custody and control. Custody over the ticket
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: and control over the user. If you can't take a
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: screenshot of your ticket, if you can't really print it
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: out in a meaningful way that you can use it,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and you can't hand it to your neighbor without using
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: their proprietary application, do you really truly own it? But
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, listen, we live in a country. Most countries.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: You don't own your passports, sure, so should we own
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: our tickets? This is the real question about things. And
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I like the idea of still owning the products that
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: we have. I don't like when I buy a movie
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: or off of Amazon or I download a game off
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: of Steam that I don't really own it, they can
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: get rid of it. You're just renting a seat of land,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a digital piece of land, by a California monopoly. We've
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: outsourced cultural property rights to servers in the US and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: we pay the interest for the convenience of being electronically shackled.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: So it is a leash.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just says on the side. You know, most
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: people don't know that, but no, you do not own
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: your passport. The government owns your passport even though it's
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: got your name and photo in it. So that's so true,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: just to side fact there. Yeah, okay, So in the US,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: after that big trial, as I said, thirty three US
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: states for moving to break up the company again USUS.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: What's that mean for us here in the Niagara region.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Well, the ideal outcome is a total forensic breakup after
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: an auditing. We need to separate the promoter from the
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: ticket seller from the venue so they all have to
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: actually compete for our business. Again, when I owned Higher
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Limits Cannabis Lounge, I would oh, I had the venue,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: but I would also have promoters that would bring in
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the shows. And then I went to a third party
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: ticket seller, a local one who did that. So it
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: was a three part model where the competition made it
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: cheaper for the end user. But I want a future
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: where a kid in Niagara can go see a show
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: without their parents having to take out a second mortgage. Gene.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: We need to stop treating concerts like they're an asset
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: class and start treating them melically. Are our culture again?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just saw the CRTC has taking twenty
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: five points off of digital streaming platforms, and I get
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: that this isn't their direct mandate, but I mean, what
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: are we actually trying to do here right now? So
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: if the World Cup is the line in the sand,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: let's draw it deep and let's stop that bleed.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Now. This is fascinating and only you would have this take.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: But I'm always interested in what you have to say.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: You want the Canadian Mint to print concert tickets? You
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: know that, you know that there's a little thing when
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: we come back from commercials, the woman says Jeane voltis brilliant?
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Are crazy? You make up your mind. I don't know
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: is this a brilliant or crazy move on your behalf?
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: It's crazy like a fox gene. Look if the Royal
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Canadian Mint can produce the most secure, unhackable polymer currency
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: on the planet, stuff that we sell to other countries.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Quite frankly, why do we let a tech giant tell
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: us they need an app and that printing things don't work.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: So we should have a maiden Canada Digital Bill of rights,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: a return to physical sovereignty. We can print World Cup
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: tickets at the Mint. They can just print tickets and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: put the logo of whatever the official you know, partner
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: is for it. Make them physical, make them secure, make
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the tickets ours again. If you can hold it, you
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: can own it. That's how we kill the box that
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the ticket masters scream about. That's how we kill the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: data mining. All in one shot. We reclaim our data,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: we keep it in Canada. We end this Silicone Valley shakedown.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, if we want fairness and transparency and the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: right to actually own things we pay for, we're gonna
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: have to fight for it. And yes, you know it's
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: a hair brain scheme to use the Mint, but if
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: it can start a conversation about actually getting our rights
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: back as ticket holders, I think that's a good thing.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: And let's be honest, the size of these venues and
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: the size of these performers and the size of these
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: organizations are outside the scope of us when you have
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: to concert girls goers at a Taylor's Swift concert, a
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: bunch of teenage girls literally causing the Richter scale to
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: change because they're moving so much in California that it's
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: showing up in seismology as earthquakes Like this is outside
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of our control, So there is a need for excessive
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: regulation here in my opinion.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Well, we're going to see what happens. And you know,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: you know, as a young kid working on a rock
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: radio station, it was always like, you know, what a ripoff?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I can't get tickets, And you know, now it's like
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: forty years later and I'm still talking about tickets and
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: what a ripoff. So hopefully we'll get this thing under control.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Hey maybe that's forty years Jeane.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. I'll still be here. Great job
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: this morning, John, and I know we're talking to you
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: tomorrow again. Have a good day, okay, buddy, you John Litkey.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: You just never know what he's gonna say.