Michigan House panel greenlights ‘Taylor Swift’ bills taking on ticket scalpers

Taylor Swift performs on opening night of The Eras Tour at State Farm Stadium in March in Arizona. The ticketing fiasco before the tour has prompted lawmakers across the country to consider new laws on live event ticketing. | Courtesy of Kevin Winter/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

Members of the Michigan House Regulatory Reform Committee this week passed a set of bipartisan bills intended to bar individuals from using software to circumvent purchasing limits when buying tickets online, advancing the bipartisan bills to the House floor.

House Bills 5661 and 5662, dubbed the “Taylor Swift Bills” by their sponsors , aim to protect consumers while purchasing tickets for high-in-demand events like Swift’s Eras tour, with the ticket website Ticketmaster canceling public sale of tickets after overwhelming demand from fans and bot attacks led to website crashes and hours long wait times.

In announcing the bills in April, state Reps. Graham Filler (R-St. Johns) and Mike McFall (D-Hazel Park) unloaded a few Swift puns in their news release headline: “Reps. McFall, Filler take ‘Swift’ action to protect people against ticket bots: It’s time for Michigan to enter its consumer protection era.”

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House Bill 5661 , introduced by McFall, bars a person from creating a bot to purchase tickets over the purchase limit; using multiple IP addresses, accounts, or email addresses to purchase event tickets over the limit; circumventing electronic queues, waiting periods or presale code systems intended to limit sales volumes; and disabling security measures, access control systems or other measures used to validate tickets.

House Bill 5662 was introduced by Filler and creates penalties for violating the provisions in House Bill 5561 including a civil fine of up to $5,000 for each ticket acquired as part of the violation, which would be deposited into the state General Fund.

It also allows the attorney general to investigate claims of violations and bring civil action to restrain or enjoin an individual in the process of violating House Bill 5561, or to collect the fines for violations. Anyone who violates a court order or injunction is subject to a civil fine of up to $5,000.

The attorney general would also be permitted to recover reasonable costs and attorney fees incurred by actions that result in a civil fine being imposed.

Before members voted on the bills, Filler discussed substitutes brought forward for each bill, which included some minor language tweaks and clarifications alongside additional provisions.

The updated version of House Bill 5561 ensures its provisions apply even if a similar technology is used, or the technology used is not called a bot, Filler said.

“We wanted to make sure that these bot companies didn’t say, ‘Well, we’re just software developers and you said bots’ and so we want to make sure that we really write the legislation enough so that we can go after these really bad actors,” Filler said.

In the substitute for House Bill 5562, the attorney general would be permitted to seek injunctive relief if they knew a bot attack was incoming and the attorney general would also have discretion on whether to investigate violations.

Both substitutes were adopted.

Members of the committee unanimously voted on Tuesday to report both bills to the House Floor. Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R-Bainbridge Twp.) was absent.

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