Ex-Ticketmaster boss who illegally accessed rival’s IT system sentenced to a year’s supervised release

The ex-Ticketmaster boss who hacked into his previous employees’ systems and brought about their collapse has been sentenced.

Stephen Mead had worked for CrowdSurge as their Senior Vice President for Global Operations and General Manager in North America. He then joined Ticketmaster. Whilst there Mead allegedly accessed CrowdSurge’s system with IP addresses registered to Ticketmaster at least 25 times between August 2013 and December 2015.

This wasn’t just a case of a lone wolf gone rogue. According to the court papers Ticketmaster executives had asked Mead to share “competitive intelligence” about CrowdSurge. 

Mead went on to share confidential CrowdSurge spreadsheets, access to the company’s password-protected information, and discussed how to cut off “CrowdSurge at the knees”. Mead also shared real-time ticket sales data as well as the identities of the artists the company was working with.

His co-conspirator and boss, the former Ticketmaster executive, Zeeshan Zaidi, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud back in 2019.

Mead pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer intrusions in June. He has been ordered to pay $67,970 (£52,000) as a forfeiture and has been sentenced to a year’s supervised release. 

Many would say he has got off lightly, considering the Department of Justice stated during the case that his actions contributed to the downfall of CrowdSurge.

This couldn’t come at a worse time for Ticketmaster, whose practices are currently under scrutiny in the wake of the Oasis tickets debacle. The industry practice of ‘dynamic’ or ‘surge’ pricing whereby ticket prices can suddenly rise for in-demand shows has recently had a light shone upon it. 

The government have confirmed that it will be looking at it in their upcoming review of the secondary ticketing market, and artists are increasingly under pressure to distance themselves from the practice – in the last week both David Gilmour and Robert Smith of the Cure have come out against it.

Meanwhile last week the consumer brand Which? called on Ticketmaster to refund Oasis fans that have been affected by dynamic pricing. Which? said that it believes Ticketmaster’s “lack of transparency” about dynamic pricing “could have breached the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs) as many fans were not informed about the increases until after they had already tried to add cheaper tickets to their baskets”.