Current ticketmaster tickets are electronic and often can be resold only on their system (depending on what the artist/venue has chosen as a restriction). Of course their system could limit the resale prices of the ticket, to the original price or a set percentage above it. They already take a bite of each resale I believe.
They have already built the electronic ticketing and transfer system that would allow them to prevent resale of tickets at a profit, the system is done. They just choose not to use it that way (and I'd guess artists/labels/venus are in on this too -- what the ticketmaster system does make possible is for them all to take a bite of the scalped ticket resale price!)
Not only does their system make it possible, they teach their "partners" (scalpers) how to buy and sell more tickets, and the fees are usually even higher on those secondary sales, so this is very lucrative for tickermaster (and the scalpers).
afaik, scalpers will often be selling tickets that have been bought speculatively in large blocks during pre-sale or when sale starts. this is a whole very complex side industry in itself, and being able to get those large chunks of cash up-front/early is beneficial for the artists/promoters/venues for lots of reasons. obv. this doesn't really apply to a super popular artist who is going to sell out on the first day, but there are very few artists/performers who do that.
so. as mentioned above. it's a hard problem to solve. if you think about it purely as a market/exchange then it's not dissimilar to how market-makers, arbitrageurs and HFT systems keep the market "efficient".
yeah, as i understand it - i did a lot of research on this for a service i was building way back - these third parties (like scalpers) are useful because they actually find the "true" price of the tickets and, through the resale services, a good chunk of that extra money makes it back to the ticketing companies/promoters/artists. i wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of these scalping operations are actually being run (secretly) by the ticketing companies and promoters themselves, or at least with their tacit approval and some revenue sharing.
so, it's a hard one to solve because it actually ends up generating more revenue for the promoters/venues and (sometimes) the artists. but the audience, who have the least power in the relationship, get screwed. well, my feeling is we/they get screwed, but many others would say this is "just capitalism".
They have already built the electronic ticketing and transfer system that would allow them to prevent resale of tickets at a profit, the system is done. They just choose not to use it that way (and I'd guess artists/labels/venus are in on this too -- what the ticketmaster system does make possible is for them all to take a bite of the scalped ticket resale price!)