Everyone's favorite Pearl Jam foe, Ticketmaster, is targeting the competition by merely absorbing it. The subsidiary of IAC/InterActive (NASDAQ: IACI) is scooping up TicketsNow Inc. for about $265 million. TicketsNow, which sold $202 million worth of tickets in 2006, is currently the country's second-largest reseller of tickets for concerts and sporting events. Number one in the resale business (a market with an overall estimated annual value of $2.5 billion to $5 billion in the U.S.) is StubHub - a division of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY).

Many of the sellers on StubHub, TicketsNow, and other sites procure their tickets originally from Ticketmaster, but Ticketmaster currently misses out on any profit gleaned from a resale. The Wall Street Journal notes that "Where resellers once were viewed as shady scalpers, now, thanks largely to the Internet, they are becoming more respectable."

TicketsNow, according to the article, is primarily a tool for professional ticket brokers, who acquire tickets from Ticketmaster and other sources and then sell to customers. The site currently charges buyers 15% on top of the sale price, and charges variable sellers' fees depending on sales volume and additional factors. Hopefully, with the two ticket names in cahoots, it doesn't essentially mean that Ticketmaster will be earning twice from the sale of a single ticket. But as the Journal points out, "The acquisition raises potentially thorny questions for TIcketmaster..."

It's been a busy year for Ticketmaster in the news ... this deal comes after concert promoter LiveNation vowed to sever ties with Ticketmaster but ahead of a planned spin-off of Ticketmaster into its own publicly traded entity.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

The self-proclaimed "Prince of Darkness" has a soul after all. Earlier this year, Ozzy Osbourne and wife Sharon announced that admission would be free of charge to Ozzfest, an 11 year-old melee of metal madness. The change is quite a show of generosity, as last year's festival tickets were as pricey as $125 a pop. Earlier this week the official festival website provided detailed instructions for procuring these free passes.

Currently, the only headlining artists who have signed up for the tour (and will not be compensated for their time or efforts) are Lamb of God, Hatebreed, and Lordi (three of my favorites, right after Hanson, Billy Joel, and Duran Duran!) An article in today's Fortune briefly explores the ramifications behind Osbourn's "free" offering, asking "why would a headliner perform for nothing?" Ozzy's lovely wife Sharon argues that the festival provides a captive audience, some of whom will buy pricey merchandise and some of whom will be converted into new fans, with the power to buy CDs down the road.

Even though it should be all about the music, the fans, and the devil-horned hand gestures, the lineup is conspicuously different. Last year's Ozzfest featured such high-profile names as System of a Down and Disturbed; previous years have offered performances from Velvet Revolver, Slipknot, Korn, Marilyn Manson, Tool, and Black Sabbath. One has to wonder how the audience turnout will be for this free show of lesser-known artists. If Lamb of God sings "Walk With Me In Hell" but no one pays to hear it, is it really a concert?

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.