r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Mar 11, 2017 9:21:25 GMT
So, apparently the use of bots to be made a criminal offence it seems. Not really geared towards this context on the face of it, but could the legislation accidentally extend to P2P, could you be busted for hogging a £5k E one day soon?
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Post by vithca on Mar 11, 2017 16:07:42 GMT
One can only hope  |
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Neil_P2PBlog
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Post by Neil_P2PBlog on Mar 11, 2017 16:17:10 GMT
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sl125
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Post by sl125 on Mar 12, 2017 12:08:59 GMT
As far as I understand it, the proposed law is not going to ban bots (how could they?). DCMS is trying to resolve the problem of ticket touts using bots to buy up concert (etc) tickets which they then resell at vastly inflated prices. eg. the situation where Harry Potter / Adele tickets, etc, go on the market on resale sites at tens of thousands of pounds in spite of the efforts of the concert promoters to enforce terms and conditions around reselling.
This is vastly different to the more general bot scenarios, eg where people write scripts to automate their bidding on a marketplace.
Bots are used in so many parts of life, whether it is automated trading systems in financial services (would you seek to ban day trading systems, for example, where the game of marginal gains means that servers are being located as close as possible to the trading market gateways?), or the chatbots that "pretend" to be your online customer services agent whenever you interact with an e-commerce site.
Note that the proposed legislation is being brought in by DCMS (ie. the govt body that deals with the arts and entertainment industry) not by BEIS, FCA or any other the other bodies that would traditionally be interested in legislation covering e-commerce, finance and technology more generally.
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Post by bobthebuilder on Mar 12, 2017 16:30:15 GMT
This is vastly different to the more general bot scenarios, eg where people write scripts to automate their bidding on a marketplace. I'm not sure that it IS "vastly different". In both cases the motive is to acquire a scarce commodity for personal financial gain.
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dzo
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Post by dzo on Mar 12, 2017 17:02:23 GMT
This is vastly different to the more general bot scenarios, eg where people write scripts to automate their bidding on a marketplace. I'm not sure that it IS "vastly different". In both cases the motive is to acquire a scarce commodity for personal financial gain. In the case of tickets they are trying to buy up the whole market so they can resell at a premium. Most P2P platforms only allow selling at par. People are using bots to beat others to loans they actually want. That being said, I don't know why people complain about tickets touts. They are only able to operate because venues sell tickets at below market value. It's like football fans complaining about high tickets prices, but then filling the stadium to capacity anyway.
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mason
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Post by mason on Mar 12, 2017 17:54:50 GMT
That being said, I don't know why people complain about tickets touts. They are only able to operate because venues sell tickets at below market value. Personally, I think it's laudable of venues/performers to make tickets at least somewhat affordable to a good cross-section of the fan base. I suppose they could auction tickets instead of sell them, but that could be quite damaging to their reputation.
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sl125
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Post by sl125 on Mar 13, 2017 8:00:19 GMT
This is vastly different to the more general bot scenarios, eg where people write scripts to automate their bidding on a marketplace. I'm not sure that it IS "vastly different". In both cases the motive is to acquire a scarce commodity for personal financial gain. Acquiring a scarce commodity for personal financial gain: that description could be applied to most of the IT in place in most financial services organisations. The difference between that and ticket touts is that the touts are using bots to corner the market. It is that monopolistic aspect that leads it to the wrong side of the morality argument. Using bots to automate manual trading on a P2p site is way down the scale.
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will
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Post by will on Mar 13, 2017 10:11:26 GMT
Bots are commonplace throughout the financial services industry (and almost every other industry). For a P2P site to thrive in needs to learn to embrace and work in harmony with bots, not fight against them.
I doubt it'll be too long before we see P2P sites with APIs so that bot manufacturers can work directly with the site rather than having to work with web pages designed for humans.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Mar 13, 2017 10:26:38 GMT
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nick
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Post by nick on Mar 13, 2017 10:41:23 GMT
What I have never really understood is why the market isn't allowed to set the price of concert/gig tickets. It is obvious that at the prices tickets are currently sold at demand vastly outstrips supply. I would have thought that it would be in the artist's & venue's best interests just to raise prices and maximise their take rather than leaving a lot of money on the table. I don't really believe the reason why prices are kept artificially low is due to keep the profile of the audience as wide as possible at such economic cost, but I struggle to find any other valid reason.
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will
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Post by will on Mar 13, 2017 10:46:59 GMT
See... I knew it wouldn't take too long! 
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Mar 13, 2017 11:03:54 GMT
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