If you are like most of us you have been forced, at one show or another, to purchase your tix via Ticketmaster -- and likely were fuming long after the show over the excessive fees.

Well the time for payback is here!

This short article from our friends over at Hypebot says it well:

Bought A Ticketmaster Ticket In The Last 12 Years? You’re About To Get A Refund

You won’t get rich on the refund, but it’s nice to see Ticketmaster get hit with some excessive fees for a change!

Here is a quick summary:

- If you used Ticketmaster‘s website to buy tickets between October 21, 1999 and October 19, 2011, you’re likely to be eligible for a refund.

- It’s the result of a class action lawsuit charging deceptive and excessive processing fees

- You should be eligible for a refund of $1.50 for every ticket order bought on the site in the last 12 years.

- Some fans who had tickets shipped cia UPS may be entitled to up to $5 per ticket refunds.

- According to court documents, Ticketmaster should be forced to pay out as much as $50 million. (Yes -- take that Ticketmaster!)

The bad news:

the lawsuit won’t stop Ticketmaster from charging high fees in the future. It just means that they have to be clearer about doing so on their web site.

But hopefully this ruling makes you smile just a little bit and feel a little better about tickets purchased in years gone by!

Anyone at all familiar with music and the music industry knows the Billboard Top 100 -- this is the chart musicians have grown up hoping to top (The Whitehalls are no exception)!

The Billboard Top 100 charts & ranks artists based on how many albums they are selling via traditional outlets. This chart worked great in the past, but as record sales decline and alternative means of building brands (YouTube, Twitter, direct-to-fan, etc) are becoming more common it is telling the complete story less and less.

So along comes Big Champagne (if you don’t know who they are click here) with The Ultimate Chart.

The Ultimate Chart (from an article by one of our faves Hypebot) is:

- a ranked list of the week’s most popular artists and songs
- integrating data from categories including:

* Song and Album Sales
* Radio Airplay
* Online Audio and Video Plays
*  Fans/Friends/Followers

the Ultimate Chart is the first and only chart that looks at all of the ways in which music is popular, online and off.

The real question will this change anything…

Probably not dramatically -- anyone who becomes an internet sensation will soon be exploited by what is left of the music industry to sell physical units.

But it is a fact that there is more to becoming an artist these days than just selling CD’s, and as an artist you have more control (and work to do) than ever in creating your own destiny!

- The Whitehalls