Ticketmaster Recruits Pros for Secret Scalper Program

Ticketmaster

CBC News:

Box-office giant Ticketmaster is recruiting professional scalpers who cheat its own system to expand its resale business and squeeze more money out of fans, a CBC News/Toronto Star investigation reveals. […] Company representatives told them Ticketmaster’s resale division turns a blind eye to scalpers who use ticket-buying bots and fake identities to snatch up tickets and then resell them on the site for inflated prices. Those pricey resale tickets include extra fees for Ticketmaster.

Spotify to Allow Indie Artists to Upload Music Directly to Service

Dan Rys, writing at Billboard:

Beginning today (Sept. 20), Spotify will begin allowing a select group of independent artists the ability to upload their music directly onto the streaming platform through their Spotify For Artists account, the company announced. […] For those artists who control their copyrights and do not have label or distribution agreements in place, they can log into their Spotify For Artists account, upload their music, fill in relevant metadata information, preview how the upload will look on their page and set the song to go live at a pre-scheduled time

Half of All Cellphone Calls Could Be Scams by 2019

The Washington Post

The Washington Post:

Nearly half of all cellphone calls next year will come from scammers, according to First Orion, a company that provides phone carriers and their customers caller ID and call blocking technology.

The Arkansas-based firm projects an explosion of incoming spam calls, marking a leap from 3.7 percent of total calls in 2017 to more than 29 percent this year, to a projected 45 percent by early 2019.

My tried and true method of just never answering the phone will finally pay off.