[lolinder]

The scalpers are often affiliated with the artists, directly or indirectly. Katy Perry's contract was leaked in 2011 and she had reserved the right to sell tickets through "Resellers" [0]. And as the grandparent notes, many of the scalpers sell their tickets on Ticketmaster, which in turn has a contract with the artists.

The artists would get more in the short term, but all this outrage that's currently directed at scalpers and Ticketmaster wouldn't just go away—a lot of it would still exist but be directed at the artists themselves.

[0] https://www.vulture.com/2011/05/katy_perry_reserves_the_righ...

[lifeisstillgood]

That Katy Perry contract solves a large piece of this puzzle for me - if we are selling to scalpers direct then there has to be a deniable way for the scalers to have got the tickets another way - for example confusing ticket purchase processes

[throw9away6]

That’s how Nike does it too