Secondary Ticket Sellers, online and offline, could find themselves out of business in the state of New York, if the state's 2007 scalping law, which removed all price caps on the resale of tickets, set to expire Saturday, is not renewed. If the legislation expires, price controls for tickets will return and the secondary ticketing industry in New York would return to ticket reselling being illegal for any amount higher than a fraction above face value. Live Nation Entertainment's own company, TicketsNow, which is allegedly on the chopping block, will also be affected.

The New York Daily News  carried the topic and presented it as a battle between two senators and points out the law has not been renewed while NY Gov. Paterson battles a Long Island state senator Sen. Craig Johnson (D-L.I.) over Ticketmaster's experiments with a paperless system, which thwarts illegal scalpers by requiring fans to buy tickets with credit cards - and swiping the same card and showing identification when they get to the venue.

But the system is also monopolistic and stops people from giving the tickets to a third party, like a friend or family member forcing resale through Ticketmaster, which, of course, gets a service fee.

Paterson wants the law to include a new provision that would force sellers to offer the option of getting a regular ticket.

"Gov. Paterson wants to protect the consumer by giving them a choice," spokesman Morgan Hook told the New York Daily News.

While Senator Johnson, Ticketmaster and Madison Square Garden, does not want the law to address the issue, and merely extend the scalper's bill for another year to hold off to wait for a new governor to take office, who will hopefully drive through more favourable legislation that puts the Secondary Ticket Market in Live Nation Entertainment's pockets vis a vis enforcing paperless ticketing.

As Adriana Hamacher reported in an EU Ticket News editorial recently TicketsNow is allegedly up for sale:

"...it’s not clear who would buy the site, with its history of problems but also because LNE wouldn’t get much for it. Though a sale price has not been disclosed, industry insiders estimate it could sell for less than a third of the original acquisition price."

The tepid stance in this case by Live Nation Entertainment in this case, is another indication of their plan to take control of the secondary ticket market - or attempt to eliminate it.

The question of Live Nation Entertainment's paperless ticketing policy is the sticky point, according to Alfred Branch Jr. at Ticketnews in a recently analysis.

"...according to sources with knowledge of the negotiations, remains how to address paperless ticketing, a technology touted by Live Nation Entertainment's Ticketmaster division as an important innovation for the company's future growth. The company has used paperless tickets, at the request of artists like John Mayer and Miley Cyrus, Ticketmaster says, to provide convenience for fans, security and control over how tickets are distributed." writes Branch.