And in turn Ticketmaster is the scapegoat that shields the artists from blame. The primary service that Ticketmaster provides is to protect the artist's reputation while ensuring as much money as possible gets made per event.
This is true, but most artists aren't insanely popular with millions of fans, most artists are little-known gig workers. In this thread we're talking about the big names, which can and do operate by different rules.
The Guardian interviewed several artists in these big tour situations and they say artists get most of each ticket sale, after taxes and royalties (though they obviously also have expenses to pay, so it's not pure profit). If you're claiming otherwise, where does your inside knowledge come from?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jan/30/where-does-con...
Source: that's literally what the companies behind lolapaloosa, monsters of rock, et all do.
The artists would get more in the short term, but all this outrage that's currently directed at scalpers and Ticketmaster wouldn't just go away—a lot of it would still exist but be directed at the artists themselves.
[0] https://www.vulture.com/2011/05/katy_perry_reserves_the_righ...
People look at high prices as "the seller is just greedy" even if they're arguably justified by the demand. If you can just relist those Taylor Swift tickets you bought at face value on Ticketmaster, they are "sold" as far as Swift herself and her record label are concerned but Ticketmaster can make extra money and presumably pays a kickback to Swift and her label. If she ceases to be the "current thing" and demand massively drops for her concerts to the point that face value is overpriced, the scalpers are left with the losses.
Sometimes scalpers do lose money. Anybody who thought Playstation VR2 was going to be high demand like the PS5 lost a ton of money getting rid of that thing below face value. Likewise, if you try to scalp tickets to an Inter Miami game on the assumption that Messi is going to be playing and it comes out that he actually won't be because he got hurt playing the last place team on the Wednesday before a Sunday game[0], you're the one who ends up losing money from the unsold ticket not the soccer teams. Which is why nobody selling high demand goods or services really cares that much about stopping scalping.
[0]: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12546567/...
They could rise the face value, but sell the first say 80% tickets at considerable discount (so that the price matches what the ticket costs today). Although perhaps this could also tarnish their relation with fans, who want to see their idols as "pure" and not commercial entities they are.
The thing is, they don't need to get additional money from the resale directly. If resale makes their events more profitable, their contracts with the venues and Ticketmaster will be more favorable.