Sale of Tickets (Cultural, Entertainment, Recreational and Sporting Events) Act 2021

Defence for secondary ticket operator

25. (1) Without prejudice to the generality of section 24 , it shall be a defence in proceedings for an offence under section 15 (3) or 17 (5) for a secondary ticket operator to show that, at the time of the alleged offence, he or she was providing an information society service consisting of—

(a) the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service or the provision of access to a communication network, including the automatic, immediate and transient storage of such information for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission, provided that the operator does not—

(i) initiate the transmission,

(ii) select the receiver of the transmission,

(iii) select or modify the information contained in the transmission, and

(iv) that the information is not stored for any period longer than is reasonably necessary for the transmission,

(b) the automatic, intermediate and temporary storage of information provided by a recipient of a service for the transmission of information in a communication network and performed for the sole purpose of making more efficient the onward transmission of that information at the request of other recipients of the service, provided that the operator—

(i) does not modify the information,

(ii) complies with the conditions on access to the information,

(iii) complies with rules regarding the updating of the information specified in a manner widely recognised and used by industry,

(iv) does not interfere with the lawful use of technology, widely recognised and used by industry, to obtain data on the use of the information, and

(v) acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the stored information upon obtaining actual knowledge of the fact that the information at the initial source of the transmission has been removed from the network, or access to it disabled, or that a court has ordered such removal or disablement,

or

(c) the storage of information provided by a recipient of the service at his or her request provided that—

(i) the recipient of the service is not acting under the authority or control of the operator,

(ii) the operator does not have actual knowledge of illegal activity or information, and the operator upon obtaining knowledge or awareness of such illegal activity acts expeditiously to remove or disable access to the information.

(2) A word or expression which is used in this section and which is also used in Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 20002 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (“Directive on electronic commerce”) has, unless the context otherwise requires, the same meaning in this section as it has in that Directive.

2 OJ No. L 178, 17.7.2000, p. 1.