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And....? Legally, does it matter? The customers were still in breach of the terms of service, and Microsoft had the right to check for the modded consoles every year, month, week, day, second, if they wanted. So long as the terms of service doesn't say when the scans for illegal boxes will occur, they should be in the clear. | |
Cheaters got tricked out of their money and banned. They deserved it. | |
They have no chance. Seriously, if it's not true then they'll fail of course, due to lack of evidence, and if it is true they'll have a hell of a time trying to prove it. Anyway, surely no laws have been broken here? It can't be wrong for Microsoft to choose their own time and terms for an action that is covered and allowed by their own user agreement, which all Xbox owners agree to when they buy the console... can it? | |
Oh shoo, Microsoft will crush them, play by the rules and you wont get banned. They agreed to the EULA, so what exactly is their case? | |
Pfft, convenient timing indeed. If it wasn't MW2 or ODST then it would've been 'conveniently' after some other game on the release list. Also; I don't find it 'arguably' that it's against the terms. It IS against the terms and conditions, both console and Live sub. There's a whole chapter on not modifying content or hardware. | |
Even if the bannings weren't against the terms of XBox live, isn't modding your console like this a violation of the DMCA? And wouldn't the class members be exposing themselves to criminal liability for participating? | |
Microsoft will never lose a law case. Also, you mod you need to be banned. I have a friend who recently got banned for a modded xbox console. | |
Wow, whats with everyone being so whiny about being banned nowadays? And by the way, those 360 people had whats coming to them. | |
I see nothing wrong with timing the bans the way they did, and it would be pretty retarded for such an action to be illegal. Any company would have done the same. | |
Honestly when it comes down to it, they violated the terms. They waited before these releases because that's when it's the most likely time that people with modded consoles would be using them. MS doesn't need to announce by law when they are going to issue the Banhammer. I feel no pitty for anyone who got banned because of this. | |
Microsoft is more cunning than we realise. | |
They took their chances with modding their consoles and the consequences came back to them. They have no one to blame but themselves. | |
No, no, they agree to the EULA when they buy XBox live! ;) I personally think that game EULAs shouldn't stand at the moment because if you disagree with an EULA from a game you bought at a physical shop, you can't return it. | |
Seems to me, these people got exactly what they deserved. They can hardly com;lain as they were the ones breaking the rules. | |
I call bullshit on this. If I've read other news correctly, Microsoft has been doing these sweeps around the same time every year. It has nothing to do with the release of these games, its just a sleazy law firm trying to make a quick buck. I don't think they have a legal leg to stand on: | |
The lawsuit fails to consider the fact that MS may have waited for the release of these two games to cement their evidence before banning people. Its a simple plan: you wait for a couple big releases to arrive, watch what happens, and then BAM! blindside the little POSs when they tip their hands. | |
That might be their only legitimate argument. | |
ok, but their Xbox live account is not banned, only their Xbox is. if they buy a new xbox and swap hard drive, they will get their xbox live account back and active.
considering that most of them were banned because they had a pirated copy of MW2 or Halo 3 ODST, and that a lot of the banned console will be remplaced by their owner, the sales would had been the same... | |
Do the words non-refundable not mean anything? And honestly does MS really save any money if there is less people using thier service? Are thier servers still not up and running regardless if those 600 000 people have gold accounts or not? So why not try and catch as many as possible at once instead of catching them a few at a time? Giving them a chance to hide. | |
Face it people who mod theirs systems are cheaters and cheats never win | |
Their proof is non-existant, much like my care for their petty lawsuit. "Wah! We did some illegal stuff and got punished!" | |
I was going to write a longer comment, but it looks like we have a general consensus here so I'll just say this: Q_Q!! | |
It's against the terms of Xbox Live. They signed up, they agreed, they got banned. They have the right to ban people at any time for violations. It's like shooting someone in broad daylight then suing the police for arresting you on Christmas. Yeah the timing sucks but you still broke the law and deserve punishment. | |
Well, as I have pointed out I think that private citizens and companies have too much powerful to control the free speech rights, and access to information/computer networks of others. Sort of like how there are rights you can't sign away to a doctor, there are rights that you shouldn't be able to sign away as part of a EULA or whatever no matter what the fine print happens to say. As things stand here however, this is exactly the kind of thing that I'd feel it reasonable to ban someone for *IF* they were cheating in games. The problem I have with this entire situation is that when I hear the term *mod* I tend to think of people modifying their motherboards to play games/versions of games not allowed in a given region. Say for example someone in Australia modding their hardware to play a game that might otherwise be locked for their region due. Something that I am 100% in support of incidently as I disagree with the entire idea of "region locking". While I understand some of the non-censorship related issues the bottom line is that it's being used for censorship. I'm of the opinion all consoles should be region free, period. I do not believe the 360 is region free. As a result I'm staying kind of neutral, I'm guessing they didn't investigate anyone, and pretty much just nuked every modified console's access that they could recognize as modded without bothering to figure out what the mods did in each case. Truthfully if the idea was to catch cheaters, I think they should have done more individual investigation, I mean honestly your paying for Gold to play online, I'd expect part of that fee to involve more involvement by actual people, making ham-fisted approaches to things unnessicary. | |
This is ridiculous, they violated the terms so they should be punished. People are so damn sue-happy it's scary. | |
This is why I hate lawyers. Junk lawsuits filling up the courts. This is worse than the guy suing Sony, M$, and Nintendo earlier today. At least he wasn't trying to make it a class action suit. Cheaters got caught...and the bans started before MW2... | |
It wouldn't surprise me if they used a major game release to catch console modders. I remember when they had new modchip-detecting code and used Halo 2 as the carrier to find, report, and ban Xbox 1 consoles. (I watched that one very closely, because I had chipped my own console. It had a hardware disable switch, which I always had "off" playing games, and my console was never banned. The only reason I chipped it was to run XBMC, and that was well worth the time and effort.) The way Live is more integrated into the 360 than the original Xbox, I don't think Microsoft would need to use a game's release in that way precisely -- they could download mod-detecting code pretty much any time they want (I think the "unauthorized storage device lockout" that slipped in with the WiFi adapter update is a prime example of that). They might have used the fact that this mega-release was coaxing more people online as an opportunity to catch more bad guys. Trying to make it sound like a nefarious plot, though, makes it sound like a bad sitcom. "First, we'll wait until Activision creates a game that is so unbelievably awesome that the pirates will have to take their tainted consoles online to play it!" As has already been noted, though, Microsoft does this every year about this time. When there's not a mega-blockbuster game release to blame it on, people just blame Microsoft for taking advantage of the upcoming Christmas shopping season itself. | |
Does the whole "convenience" argument strike anyone else as a Conspiracy Theory? There seems to additionally exist a viable reason for the timing outside of gouging people, and it's been common for all big releases. It also seems to assume the people who were banned would be the ones buying the titles en masse, which seems counterintuitive. Now, we all know things aren't that simple, but casting a sales decease as likely already seems to simplify things. Not to mention, "I wouldn't have bought it if I knew I was going to get caught doing something illegal" just sounds silly. | |
I've never really understood what they mean by modded consoles. I've got a friend or two who gutted their consoles and incorporated them into their normal PC cases. Far as I know its the same hardware and software running it, they just have a switch that changes the video output from the computer to the Xbox. Its pretty bad-ass actually I'd have them do it to mine if I didn't already have heating concerns about my PC. | |
The results of an unsuccessful class action lawsuit: The results of a successful class action lawsuit: | |
Modding a console is like shooting someone in broad daylight? Hyperbole much? I'm all for punishing cheaters, but I'm kind of surprised by the number of people rushing to Microsoft's defense. There are implications here beyond simply people pirating games, and I think mokes310's point about not refunding the remainder of their subscription fees is the salient one here. Keep in mind that these people weren't banned for cheating or even pirating games - they were banned for modding their consoles. That can mean a lot of things, and while it may be against the terms of the EULA, it's not necessarily unethical. Therumancer is right - what if people were modding their consoles to be able to play games from other regions? Could we really begrudge Australian players for wanting to play the non-neutered version of Left 4 Dead 2? Here's another example: Imagine if AT&T banned iPhone users from their networks for jailbreaking their phones (which violates AT&T/Apple's EULA), then continued to charge them $70 a month for service. People would be up in arms about it, and rightly so. But because Xbox Live subscriptions are purchased up front, banned players deserve to lose this money? I'm as against frivolous lawsuits as anyone (see this guy), but this one strikes me as having some merit. | |
It's unlikely they can or will detect such a mod. Certain other mods like fan mods are common and popular and have no real impact on piracy. Worst case is that you've voided your warranty, but there doesn't seem to be any indication that case mods have been targeted. Not that I do it, mind. Mine's still factory sealed and will remain that way. | |
Okay, robbing a convenience store, that better for you? And why should they refund the subscription? They willfully and knowingly broke the user agreement. And if they didn't read it, tough shit, at the end of the day you still said "I Agree". Oh, and you comparing $70/mo. and $50/yr. isn't a form of hyperbole, how? | |
He has a good point about the timing I guess, but it's still not a lawsuit Xbox users can expect to win. Unfortunately, user license agreements (despite being vastly unfair and being viewable only AFTER purchasing the product most of the time) are still accepted as a form of legal agreement. I'm not supporting pirating a million 360 games, but I very much think somebody needs to champion consumer rights. I've been saying this for a while now, but piracy today seems to be the excuse a lot of companies are using to justify all kinds of horrible garbage, like spyware/malware being put in commercial products and extremely restrictive EULAs. | |
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Law Firm Considers Class Action Suit Over Xbox Live Bans
A law firm in the U.S. is looking for Xbox Live users interested in joining a class action lawsuit against Microsoft in response to the company's decision to ban as many as a million users from the service for having modified consoles.
The Abington IP, a "boutique law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and consumer class actions," is seeking Xbox Live customers who were caught in Microsoft's recent sweeping ban of users with modified consoles and who "were not refunded a prorated sum for the time left on [their] subscription or have experienced other problems as a result of being banned" to take part in a class action lawsuit against the company. Central to the law firm's complaint is the timing of the ban, which it noted came "conveniently" after the release of Halo 3: ODST and Modern Warfare 2.
"Although modification of Xbox consoles is *arguably* against the terms of use for Xbox/Xbox Live, Microsoft 'conveniently' timed the Xbox console ban to coincide with the release of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game and less than two months after the release of the very popular Halo 3: ODST game. This 'convenient' timing may have resulted in more Xbox Live subscription revenues for Microsoft than it would have generated had these Xbox console bans taken place at some time before the release of Halo 3: ODST and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," the firm said. "Additionally, sales of both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (published by Activision) and Halo 3: ODST (published by Microsoft Game Studios) would likely have been greatly diminished had the Xbox console ban occurred prior to the release of these games."
I'm no fan of lawsuits but I have to admit that the point about the timing is interesting. Did Microsoft hold off on the ban so it could squeeze a few more rubles out of the peasants? Maybe - but good luck proving it. Still, if this sounds like the kind of shenanigans you'd like to get wrapped up in (and you have a legitimate reason for doing so), you can toss your key in the jar at Abington IP's Xbox Live Class Action Investigation page.
Source: IncGamers
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