Black market at Samfundet.no
At the discussion forum at Samfundet.no people are selling tickets only to profit from it, which is against the rules.
– It is the person who does it that is breaking the rules, but Samfundet have a responsibility to make sure that what happens on the web page is. When they are allowing this sort of activity, they arrange for a black market sale, says Frode Elton Haug, section manager at The Consumer Ombud (Forbrukerombudet).
He says that the sales are violations of the law against underground economy.
– Because Samfundet knows about the illegal sales, they are in principle responsible for it.
A quick search on the forum at Samfundet’s web pages gives us examples of the illegal sale - several posts of overprized Kaizers Orchestra tickets have been on the page since October. Buyers are also posting, with promises of paying double the cost of a ticket.
Concert arranger and festival manager for Pstereo, Frode Halvorsen thinks that the black market sales are unfortunate.
– It is an absurdity for both the arranger and the audience, only those who sell gain on this. A consequence might be that only those who can afford to pay extra for tickets are able to attend the arrangements.
Halvorsen does not think that black market sale is a big problem in Trondheim yet, but one has to make sure that it will stay that way in the future.
According to branch director Eivind Tesaker at the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs (KKD), Forbrukerombudet can react to this with fines due to rule breaking. Section manager Haug in Forbrukerombudet agrees.
– We are mainly concentrating on black market sales on a grander scale, but the law does also count for private individuals. We have among other things, made agreements with the major websites Qxl.no and Finn.no, which will make it harder for people to sell overprized tickets. These websites have been good with removing sales we have made them aware of, and normally it has not evolved into larger cases.
He tells us that Samfundet, just like Qxl.no and Finn.no in principle can receive punishment, but Forbrukerombudet does in practice concentrate on bigger tradesmen.
From a journalism ethics point of view, secretary-general of Norsk Presseforbund (NP, Norwegian Journalism Organization), Per Edgar Kokkvold, thinks that there is no doubt about Samfundet’s responsibility.
– Even though Samfundet.no is not a journalistic medium, they have an indirect ethical responsibility.
Kokkvold tells us that not all websites can be felled under the same journalistic ethical rules in Vær Varsom-plakaten (ethical rules for printed press, radio, television and online publications in Norway), but Samfundet.no as an official website should follow these rules.
Down prioritized the black market activity
– It is unfortunate that black marketing has been going on in our forum, but we are working on it, says Marie Stølen, leader of Samfundet.
Stølen admits that they have known about the black market listings since October. As the leader of Samfundet, she is also editor in chief of the website.
– How can you guarantee that similar things will not happen in the future?
– We are working on it, to make sure it will not happen again.
According to Stølen, the case was discussed in October, but she says Samfundet prioritized their new website during the fall.
– It takes time to remove this sort of posts, we have to delete one at a time, and have therefore not been taken care of.
Stølen tells us that they are working on a digital solution that automatically will detect post about selling and buying. It is not yet decided what sort of solution they will use, or if they will have to pre-edit the forum. Up until now, the posts have been checked from time to time by a web editor.
– We are playing by the rules of the forum.
As the rules tell us, users who are dealing with black market sale will be banned.
Stølen has set the deadline to Tuesday, 13th of January to get all the posts deleted.
The law against underground economy
• Forbids overprizing and reselling of tickets to cultural and sports related arrangements.
• The law was approved in 2007.
• Minister of Culture and Church Affairs, Trond Giske, was one of its pioneers.
• When Giske presented the law, he said that the reason was to make culture available for everyone, and to make reselling and overprizing harder.
Sources: Lovdata.no/Adresseavisa
Translated by Maria Kråkmo
