Ticketmaster and Live Nation must continue defending a Federal Trade Commission case over ticket-resale practices after a federal judge rejected their bid to end it early. The ruling does not decide that the companies broke the law. It decides that the FTC and seven states have alleged enough for their claims to proceed into the next stage of the case.
At the centre is the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, or BOTS Act. The FTC alleges Ticketmaster let professional brokers get around ticket-purchase limits by using large numbers of accounts under fake names, then enabled tickets obtained that way to be resold through its secondary marketplace. Billboard first reported the September 28 order, while TicketNews separately reported on the 27-page decision.
Ticketmaster argued that the BOTS Act was aimed at brokers and automated purchasing tools, rather than platforms that host ticket sales or resales. U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong rejected that reading. "The BOTS Act does not preclude platforms from facing liability," the judge wrote, adding that the court would not read the law as shielding platforms.
That ruling is about whether the legal theory can be tested, not whether the FTC's account is true. TicketNews notes that the court said it was not deciding the truth of the accusations at this stage. On a motion to dismiss, the question is whether the allegations, treated as true only for that procedural purpose, meet the legal standard to continue.
The government's complaint says Ticketmaster publicly represented that it enforced ticket limits while allowing some brokers to evade them. Billboard reports that the order cited an internal email in which a senior executive allegedly said the companies would "turn a blind eye as a matter of policy." The alleged email and the claimed awareness of broker accounts remain disputed allegations, not court findings.
The companies also said exceeding a purchase limit was not itself a BOTS Act violation, which concerns circumvention of technological measures used to enforce restrictions. TicketNews reports that the court considered the complaint's allegations about account systems and purchasing-interface limits sufficient for the case to move on. The ruling also permits claims under the FTC Act and state consumer-protection laws to continue.
Separate claims about "+Fees" pricing also survived the dismissal attempt, according to Billboard. The FTC alleges the wording was deceptive drip pricing; Ticketmaster has said it now uses all-in pricing. The order does not resolve whether the earlier disclosures were unlawful, and it does not award damages or impose any structural remedy.
Ticketmaster disputes the lawsuit. Billboard reports that Live Nation legal chief Dan Wall has said the company has taken anti-broker action, while TicketNews says the companies argue that Ticketmaster operates a marketplace rather than selling resale tickets itself. Those defences will now be tested through the case rather than decided at the pleading stage.
The immediate consequence is procedural: discovery and further case management can proceed. It is not an antitrust breakup ruling, a liability verdict or a finding that every resale transaction breached the law. For the live-events business, the narrower but important question now remains whether a ticketing platform can be held responsible under the BOTS Act for the broker conduct alleged by regulators.
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