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
Just take each other down already.
Things always get decided conveniently for someone, so I don't trust them one bit.
If tickets were fan-club exclusive only, it'd cost more and scalpers couldn't profit off it, right?
Something about exclusive sales running afoul of antitrust law, apparently…
Because most scalpers aren't paying proper taxes on their profits.
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.
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.
Everyone wants to curb scalpers just the same, so why would that go badly for Johnny's?
Someone smart, explain it to me.
There are people making money off resale itself.
And there are people making money off the fees tied to it too.
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.
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.
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.
But they want all those membership fees too, don't they?
Johnny's isn't exactly one to talk there.
That alone would solve it — why isn't this being done?
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.
Then refuse entry to anyone without ID matching that exact name.
There's a thing called "name lending" (borrowing someone else's name/ID), you know…
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.
Or is it first-come-first-served?
It's lottery everywhere,
but popular tickets get so many lottery losers that scalpers resell them for like 10 times the price.
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.
Can't you even be bothered to read post #1?
Makes you wonder if they actually want to crack down on this at all.
That gets done sometimes too,
but there are idiots who cheat it with screenshots.
If you only ever hear one side's opinion, it's not a legitimate panel at all.
That person is the chair, though.
Fair, is it?
— 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★].”
