STARTO ENTERTAINMENT, the talent agency formerly known as Johnny’s Office, has made an unusual complaint to an expert panel convened by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The panel is discussing a “sender information disclosure system” meant to identify the real identities of ticket scalpers — but it turns out the panel’s chair had previously written a legal opinion favoring the opposing side in a lawsuit STARTO itself filed against a ticket resale site. The agency, which has long been at odds with scalpers, has now turned its criticism toward the very government body meant to craft anti-scalping policy. On 5ch, alongside surprise at this twist, many users asked a more basic question: why is resale even treated as such a problem, and why does it run rampant when reselling above face value is already supposed to be illegal?
STARTO ENTERTAINMENT Co., Ltd. (STARTO), the talent agency representing performers formerly with Johnny’s Office, has lodged an unusual “complaint” with the government. The setting: an expert panel at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications discussing a “sender information disclosure system” designed to unmask the identities of ticket scalpers.
It turns out that the chair running that panel had previously written a legal opinion siding with the resale site that STARTO is currently suing in court. “Doesn’t this make it hard to call this fair?” The agency, which has fought scalpers for years, has finally turned its sights on the very body crafting the policy.
The agency that’s been fighting scalpers has now taken a bite out of a government panel
Source: coki.jp / Original article here
3AnonymousOct 10, 2026 09:56
Why is Johnny's so hated by the public anyway?
5AnonymousOct 10, 2026 09:56
I don't like scalpers, and I don't like Johnny's either.
Just take each other down already.
6AnonymousOct 10, 2026 09:57
These government expert panels are a total black box.
Things always get decided conveniently for someone, so I don't trust them one bit.
7AnonymousOct 10, 2026 09:57
I don't like Johnny's, but if they're actually putting real rules in place for ticket sales, then they're the ones in the right here.
9AnonymousOct 10, 2026 09:58
I don't get why resale is treated as such a problem.
If tickets were fan-club exclusive only, it'd cost more and scalpers couldn't profit off it, right?
10AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:00
Re: #9
Something about exclusive sales running afoul of antitrust law, apparently…
18AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:09
Re: #9
Because most scalpers aren't paying proper taxes on their profits.
39AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:25
Re: #9
Why can't fans who should rightfully get tickets actually get them at face value in the first place?
It's because of scalpers, obviously.
11AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:00
Shigeoka's tickets sell below face value anyway (Shigeoka Daiki, a STARTO idol — not every act gets scalped).
12AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:02
Isn't resale hard to crack down on because of freedom of trade?
If sellers want to refuse it, they have to build their own system to do so.
Demanding the poster's identity be disclosed seems like overkill.
14AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:04
I don't really get it, but does this mean the conclusion is likely to end up bad for Johnny's?
Everyone wants to curb scalpers just the same, so why would that go badly for Johnny's?
Someone smart, explain it to me.
57AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:41
Re: #14
There are people making money off resale itself.
And there are people making money off the fees tied to it too.
15AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:05
So this "expert panel" is rotten enough to make Johnny's look like the reasonable one here?
17AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:07
I'm firmly on STARTO's side on this one.
This is way too suspicious — it's obvious they're in bed with the resale side. Having that person as chair is an absolute farce.
19AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:09
Ticket resale sites have a weird setup too.
Maybe they were built to promote resale from the very start.
Lately tickets range from ones scalpers swarm for huge markups to ones that don't sell at all — it's gotten bizarre.
20AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:09
It's just market forces at work.
What's really needed is effort to keep tickets from being resold in the first place.
Letting people buy multiple fan-club memberships is the actual abnormal part.
53AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:35
Re: #20
But they want all those membership fees too, don't they?
Johnny's isn't exactly one to talk there.
37AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:21
Just ban resale above face value or the listed price.
That alone would solve it — why isn't this being done?
51AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:32
Re: #37
There's already a Ticket Resale Prohibition Act banning sales above face value, yet it's openly sold out in plain sight — that's the real mystery.
Guess they really are in cahoots with the government.
45AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:30
Just print the buyer's name on the ticket at time of sale.
Then refuse entry to anyone without ID matching that exact name.
70AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:52
Re: #45
There's a thing called "name lending" (borrowing someone else's name/ID), you know…
65AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:46
Wasn't reselling resale-banned tickets outside official channels already made a criminal offense in the first place?
73AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:53
Re: #65
Didn't know it had gotten to criminal-offense level. But given that, I seriously doubt the flea-market apps commonly used for resale are actually taking the appropriate action.
68AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:50
Don't concert tickets go through lottery sales?
Or is it first-come-first-served?
72AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:53
Re: #68
It's lottery everywhere,
but popular tickets get so many lottery losers that scalpers resell them for like 10 times the price.
74AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:54
Guess the pro-legalize-resale camp must have some real pull, huh.
83AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:56
Re: #74
That side probably throws around more money in donations and the like.
Unless it blows up into a scandal big enough for the public to riot over, they'll side with wherever the money's flowing.
76AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:54
So basically, the takeaway here is just that Johnny's sucks?
79AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:55
Re: #76
Can't you even be bothered to read post #1?
78AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:54
Facial recognition would weed out fraudulent tickets.
Makes you wonder if they actually want to crack down on this at all.
82AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:56
Re: #78
That gets done sometimes too,
but there are idiots who cheat it with screenshots.
81AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:55
It's an expert panel, so of course someone from the resale side is on it.
If you only ever hear one side's opinion, it's not a legitimate panel at all.
88AnonymousOct 10, 2026 10:59
Re: #81
That person is the chair, though.
Fair, is it?
90AnonymousOct 10, 2026 11:02
This article writes it up like STARTO is the villain here
— just trying to bait idiots into biting.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Japan’s law banning unauthorized ticket resale took effect in 2019, making resale above face value illegal. In practice, though, high-priced resale on flea-market apps and similar platforms has never stopped, and there have long been doubts about how effectively the law is actually enforced. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications panel in question was convened to examine how to operate the “sender information disclosure system” for identifying scalpers’ identities — in principle, a framework meant to advance anti-scalping measures. What split opinion on the thread was how to judge the appointment of the panel’s chair. One camp held that “if someone close to the opposing party in the lawsuit is chairing the panel, it lacks fairness,” while another countered that “expert panels are meant to bring together people with opposing views in the first place, so including someone from one side is only natural.” On the more fundamental question of why resale is even a problem, many pointed to the fact that proper tax revenue never reaches the original sellers, and to the basic structure of scalpers targeting lottery losers to resell at inflated prices. At the same time, some comments turned the criticism back on the agencies themselves, arguing that allowing multiple fan-club entries per person and poorly designed lottery systems are what create the ticket shortages in the first place.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “STARTO Raises a Flag Against the Ministry — The Bizarre Situation of the Opposing Party in a Ticket Resale Lawsuit Running the Expert Panel [Ailuropoda melanoleuca★].”
