You might say that if you're stupid enough to pay $500 for a pair of Smashing Pumpkins tickets on a resale site, you've no one to blame but yourself. You'd probably be right.
But as Canadian Henryk Krajewski begins his previously reported lawsuit against Ticketmaster, claiming that the ticketing giant's secondary tickets resale website TicketsNow, and the way the main Ticketmaster site links to it, breaches Ontario rules on ticket touting, his lawyers say hundreds of people have been in touch about joining the legal action.
As also previously reported, Krajewski is looking to turn the litigation into a class action lawsuit so that anyone who feels they've been cheated by a ticket resales website can make a claim.
The whole lawsuit does seem rather ambitious - especially the C$500 million Krajewski is suing for - and Ticketmaster chairman Barry Diller said yesterday that the action was "without merit".
However, as we said yesterday, with Diller and co busy trying to convince US authorities that a combined Live Nation Ticketmaster won't lead to them abusing their position in the live music market, they could do without a high profile lawsuit in neighbouring Canada accusing Ticketmaster of already abusing its position as the dominant ticketing agency.
Confirming that hundreds of ticket buyers had been in touch since the lawsuit had been publicised, and responding to Diller's remarks, Krajewski's lawyer Jay Strosberg told reporters yesterday: "The nice thing about the law is that it's not going to be up to him . The court will ultimately determine if the action has merit. We don't start actions if we do not believe they have merit".
On the link between the lawsuit and the Live Nation Ticketmaster merger - which isn't legally significant, but which does make the litigation more interest - Strosberg continued: "Ticketmaster's reach is broadening and they're going to be gaining control of a larger number of tickets. So it just means the serious questions raised in this action must be answered".