I've just been watching a BBC Breakfast package about this issue of reseling tickets for music and sporting events with a "vox pop" where most of the respondents were saying things like reselling is "not fair, because we can no longer afford it".  

Well this may not be a populist line to take but I'm sorry, that's tough! Nobody is entitled to attend such an event as of right. What if your preferred art-form is Impressionist art. Are politicians supposed to limit the price at which Sotheby's can sell a Renoir so that every household can afford one? No, you have to settle for a print or poster that you can keep - analogous say to a CD - or perhaps a visit to a one off exhibition to see an original - analogous say to watching the event live on TV.

MPs for once seem to be taking the right line - tighten up on sharp practices, but don't interfere in a legitemate market.

If a particular performer or promoter wants to attract people of limited means to their events, they could, as Michael Eavis does for Glastonbury to his credit, voluntarily put in place some form of protection so that only the original allottees of tickets can attend. Charity perfomances could use such a mechanism, or better still they could organize their own auction in which any premium paid goes to the charity concerned.

If I felt sorry for anyone in all of this - but not very sorry - it might be the artists/performers/impressarios who are pressured to price their tickets at way below what is obviously the open market value leaving it to the lucky initial purchaser to make the biggest profit on the tickets. There's a possible mechanism that works in the stock exchange where some new placements of securities are offered on a "tender" basis where hopeful buyers submit bids and the price at which all of the offer can be sold is set as the "strike price" which everyone then pays.

The same technologies that enable the after-market in tickets can be harnessed directly by promoters and artists to achieve these ends too if they want to.

But ultimately for me the real problem is the hype and marketing that pitches some performers' worth at so much more than others. I used regularly to go to a weekly arts night in Oxford where for £3.50 or whatever it was I could get a dozen live performances by musicians often way better, in my opinion, than many chart artists. And if enough people decide they're not going to pay inflated prices for over-hyped performers and instead go and support their local performers the returns to performers in general are going to even out over time.

There's also an intellectual property aspect to this. I've heard tell that because of music sharing pop artists are saying that they now look much more to live performances to generate the most income. In a sense that's a good thing, as the opportunity to see a live performance is seen as more "authentic" than buying a recording. And if more of them do so rather than relying on the marketing of their recorded albums ticket prices will also fall and the revenue more evenly spread amongst all the artists in that market - there's only so many concerts someone can go to in a week! Conversely, if the media giants stopped trying to protect their revenues so strictly and allowed artists' work to find its own value level they would secure a longer term income from them.

I do accept that there are some sharp practices being employed by resellers and intermediaries but these are the province of existing trading standards enforcement. And "caveat emptor" ought not to apply to a middle-man facilitating the sale of something that may be a misrepresentation - they ought at least to perform "due diligence" if they are taking a commission out of the process. If promoters have made arrangements to enforce non-transferrability as part of the contract of the original sale they have a right of redress if a buyer breaches that contract. But there's no need for any new legislation for this - it's merely that they can't be bothered to use the existing mechanisms in contract law and want added protection. Well no thanks. They'd only need to pursue a few miscreants through the existing civil legal mechanisms and the risk involved in buying tickets in the after-market would begin to outweigh the inflated prices being asked.