SEOUL, August 28 (AJP) - South Korea began enforcing tougher anti-scalping rules for concert and sports tickets Friday, rolling out the detailed penalties and procedures behind a law that expanded the definition of illegal ticket buying and resale.
The enforcement decrees under the Performance Act and the National Sports Promotion Act took effect Friday, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said.
The underlying laws, amended in February, newly banned illegal ticket buying and expanded the ban on illegal resale regardless of whether a macro program was used, moving beyond the previous rule that only targeted resale of tickets bought through automated programs.
Friday's decrees fill in the details, including penalty schedules, reporting-body requirements and reward payments.
Under the law, illegal ticket buying covers purchases made for resale by bypassing or disrupting the fair purchasing process set by the original seller.
Illegal resale covers the repeated or business-like sale or brokering of tickets above the purchase price without the consent of the original or authorized ticket seller.
Violators face up to one year in prison or a criminal fine of up to 10 million won ($7,200), and profits from such transactions can be confiscated.
The ministry can also impose administrative penalties on illegal resellers of up to 50 times the sales amount, with the multiplier set according to the number of tickets and total resale value.
A new reward system will pay up to 50 million won ($36,000) to those who report illegal ticket buying, and up to half of the administrative penalty imposed on an offender to those who report illegal resale.
Ticket sellers and online platforms will be required to verify users' identities, offer reporting functions, warn users of possible penalties, and block posts linked to illegal transactions when notified by designated reporting bodies or investigators.
Those bodies can request seller information, transaction records and access logs from sellers and platforms.
Companies that refuse without valid reason, or submit false data, face administrative fines of up to 5 million won.
Culture Minister Choi Hwi-young chaired a joint inspection meeting Friday with 19 agencies and companies, including the Fair Trade Commission, the National Police Agency, ticketing platforms such as NOL Ticket and Yes24, and resale marketplaces including Naver and Danggeun Market.
Choi said the revised rules would help the government crack down on scalping and protect fair access to tickets for concertgoers and sports fans.
The ministry also said it would move to revise the Motion Picture and Video Products Promotion Act to close a regulatory gap around movie ticket scalping, especially for premium and special-format screenings.
AJP Takeaways
· Korea’s tougher anti-scalping rules for concert and sports tickets took effect Friday.
· The rules expand enforcement beyond macro-based ticket buying and resale.
· Illegal resellers may face fines of up to 50 times the sales amount.
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