TicketMaster Is Being Sued For Allegedly Hacking Their Competitors

According to Variety, Ticketmaster faced intense competitive pressure from several startups, including CrowdSurge, so Ticketmaster poached a top executive from CrowdSurge named Stephen Mead.

Mead allegedly held on to thousands of internal CrowdSurge documents and also gained unauthorized access to CrowdSurge's internal systems even after he left the company. In fact, the executive allegedly gave Ticketmaster's executives access to CrowdSurge's systems.

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Variety noted that in total Mead may have held on to 85,000 company documents on his laptop after leaving the company. The documents include confidential business plans, strategic and financial information, contracts, client lists and much more.

Mead Was 'Willing And Eager'

The text of the court document alleged that Mead was asked "to use his knowledge of CrowdSurge's internal systems to improperly access those systems for purposes of monitoring CrowdSurge's potential and actual artist- clients, staying abreast of what CrowdSurge was doing and, ultimately, to 'cut [CrowdSurge] off at the knees."

Moreover, Mead was "willing and eager to share the requested confidential CrowdSurge information" with Ticketmaster.

In a statement to Variety, Ticketmaster contends that the claims have "no legal merit and Live Nation and Ticketmaster will continue to vigorously defend this case."