The Chairman of the Music Managers Forum and co-founder of Big Life management says that eBay owe the artist community £10 million.
That claim follows eBay's announcement last week that it will force people who resell tickets to charity shows via the auction website to pass at least 20% of their profit back to whatever cause the show was set up to support. Jazz Summers says that he reckons ticket touts made £50 million by reselling tickets on eBay last year, and if the auction website now admits that the beneficiary of a concert should be due a fifth of the profit, the beneficiary of the non-charity events - ie the artists and promoters - should also get their cut. Do the math and you get the £10 million figure.
Summers is quoted by Music Week thus: "I note that eBay has been shamed into action on charity tickets. But by our reckoning eBay generated around £50m worth of business in re-selling non-charity concert tickets last year. If, as they seem to be saying, 20% is a fair rate, then that means they owe artists and musicians £10m. They should pay up".
As much previously reported, the MMF has proposed a Resale Rights Society which would offer ticket auction sites legitimacy in return for a commitment to pass a cut of any touting profits back to the artist and promoter community - though it's a proposal that few in the secondary ticketing market have been especially enthusiastic about.