Live Nation’s Ticketmaster Fined $10M Fine Over Hack Of WMG’s Songkick

[UPDATED] Ticketmaster will pay a $10 million fine to the US government after illegally accessing the computer systems of competitor Songkick repeatedly between 2013 and 2015 in an attempt to “cut [it] off at the knees.”

A subsidiary of Live Nation, Ticketmaster used the stolen information to compete with ticket pre-sale platform CrowdSurge which merged with Songkick in 2015 and was acquired by WMG in 2017.

“Ticketmaster employees repeatedly – and illegally – accessed a competitor’s computers without authorization using stolen passwords to unlawfully collect business intelligence,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme. “Further, Ticketmaster’s employees brazenly held a division-wide ‘summit’ at which the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company’s computers as if that were an appropriate business tactic.”

Ticketmaster issued this statement:

“Ticketmaster terminated both (employees) Zaidi and Mead in 2017, after their conduct came to light. Their actions violated our corporate policies and were inconsistent with our values. We are pleased that this matter is now resolved.”