You had to know someone out there would try and profit off Microsoft's recent mass bannination of modded Xbox 360 consoles from Xbox Live, and although the eBay scammers arguably got there first, we're awarding the style trophy to AbingtonIP, an Oklahoma law firm that's trying to gin up a class-action lawsuit. Why? Because even though the XBL terms of service expressly prohibit modded consoles, AbingtonIP thinks it's not fair for Microsoft to have timed the ban to coincide with the release
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and it also thinks it's unfair for an XBL ban to affect "Xbox functionality not associated with piracy" like Netflix, arcade games, and DLC. A noble cause, to be sure, but if you're a modder who didn't think there was a chance you'd be booted from Live at some point, you're not a very smart modder -- and Microsoft isn't under any obligation to time its bans for the convenience of people breaking its terms of service. The firm is just at the generating-interest phase and hasn't filed anything yet, so we'll see how far these freedom fighters get -- we'd guess this one dies on the vine.
posted November 20th 2009 10:18AM
Life is Not Fair.
@OneLove
Life is fair... at being unfair! :)
@%UsernameHTML%
Guys question for you, Xbox 360 came out in 2005, we are almost in 2010, will the new Xbox come out in 2010?
@Sea Urchin no - new xbox rumoured for 2012. new wii rumoured for 2010. new PS rumoured for... actually no rumours yet.
life sucks. then you die.
@OneLove
If you're stupid enough to log into XBL with a modded system, you deserve what you got. Wasn't it good enough that you were basically getting all the games you wanted for free? You had to go one step further and actually use your free games on XBL?
Don't be stupid, if you have a modded XBOX, stay away from XBL. It's that simple. Oh, and enjoy all your free games.
@OneLove
you know what they say... life sucks and then you die.
@willow_twf
I was hoping someone would make a Dennis Leary reference. Kudos to you.
" Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.”
What a bunch of whiners! Go crawl back into your mommy's basement till you get a job and can afford to buy games to play.
@y3k.nik Wow that is really rude, believe it or not at least have of modders can afford there games, but me like most others have kids and games cost almost the price of have a system. So I always back up my originals and give the kids that to play they can scatch those up all they want then disk only cost 2 bucks not 70. Second there is also action being looked at in Europe and it has nothing to do with live.
Why, because again most modders know that you can be kicked off the Service even the TOS says this but the equipment is being messed with also that has been bought and also they can not keep the money that they have gain from people being banned. Which is against many countries laws and is not to nicely looked upon in Europe where Microsoft has been already been butt F****** because of there practices. There is more to this than just modding it is basically when does ownership begin and producer control end.
@y3k.nik
I think that's a bit harsh. Filing a lawsuit is a little crazy I agree, but there are just sooooooooooo many people out there that still don't understand downloading games, music, movies, etc IS STEALING. Because so many people do it, it feels fine. Our best course of action is to call this behavior out when we see it. Notify the people that it is piracy, and it is illegal - in the most humble way possible.
@adamsterrence
Can you hand on heart say that all games you own were all legally purchased?
@trainwrecka Are you special in the head? There are more than one reasons to mod an Xbox that has NOTHING to do with piracy
@adamsterrence
I agree with some mods and using it for the right purposes. I recently used a mod to flash my extra 250 gb HDD that I got from a friend to replace my 20 gb HDD that went down for my Xbox360. There's no reason I should pay $80-120 to upgrade my console when I can do it for little to nothing.
But the mods specifically for copying games I don't agree with. It's human nature to take advantage of their situation and the vast majority of people that can get something for free will do it.
A perfect scenario is the PSP. When it first came out it had no protection and almost died as a platform because of that. Today the only PSP's I see with un-modded firmware are the PSP's that are still in stores.
@sam
Legitimate question: Besides piracy and cheating, why would you mod? I really don't know the answer to this so it is an honest question.
Also, I think the vast majority of modding is to pirate and cheat, and MS is well within their rights to ban people, right or wrong.
@cashmonee
Hard Drive Space. Microsoft charge a very high premium for a hard drive that cost next to nothing. I live my Xbox360 but hate the fact that I am stuck with a small hard drive.
@poke YES 100% and yes I know people who download every game they get, beside maybe FIFA and MADDEN I never get games at ZERO day gamestop is my best friend people play the games and then return them the same day I just bought MW2 from Gamestop for €40 €30 less then what the new game cost and totally in perfect condition. So I don't feel as rob. All other games are for my kids I do the same with all my kids DVD's they are all backed up from the original I pack it away and only leave the backups in there room, and there are shit loads of people who do this.
@trainwrecka
Although I agree with most of your arguments, I feel the need to say this, copyright infringement IS NOT STEALING, if it was stealing it would be called STEALING like with any other physical good. The principle behind Stealing is that you disowned someone from their property, i.e. if you steal my car, I now longer can use it, you disowned me from the property of my car. With copyright infringement it is different, if I make an unauthorized copy of MW2, Infinity Ward still owns MW2, I did not disowned the property of the MW2 from them, I just didn't pay them the license to use the software. It would be different if I robbed the truck that carries legitimate copies of MW2, in that case, I would be stealing Infinity Ward's property as I would be stilling their discs, but once again, not their software, nor their Intellectual Property.
I really hope this is understandable as English is not my first language.
@y3k.nik FYI not all modders are pirates. Some people mod thier console just to play region locked games. Talk about being judgmental.
Dear hugoliva,
Your English is fine, your comprehension of US and International intellectual property law isn't. Needless to say, the system you describe does not exist anywhere in real life, and you should consider what would happen to the game/music/book artist if every person on this earth "didn't steal" but instead just "didn't pay the license." You should ask them when they receive no money from their hard work whether others are "stealing" from them or not.
@NeoteriX
My comprehension of IP law is fine, thank you very much. Nowhere in my post I said we shouldn't compensate the authors for their hard work nor I'm saying piracy is right, I'm just arguing that copyright infringement /= stealing. The fact that a million people illegally copied a song I made and license at $1, does not mean that I automatically lost $1,000,000, I still retain the ownership of the song and I still can sell licenses of it to other people. It sucks that not everyone paid for my work and sure as hell I'm gonna be pissed at them, but my bank account will still have the same amount of money that I had before.
@Goopy
"Some people mod thier console just to play region locked games."
... and how is this not piracy?
I bought it at the Pokemon Center in Osaka... '-p
@hugoliva I understand your argument, since pirates do not physically steal out of a company's account, but the fact remains that piracy does impact the revenue of a company. For every one person who obtains a copy of the game through piracy versus purchasing, there is a net loss for the company.
Plus, some pirated games do not work as well since there are other hidden protections and due to those protections booting pirated copies, bad publicity is produced around the game. We can take the example of Titan's Quest which although was a bit buggy, constantly crashed for pirated copies, which led to many people ranting and raving about it which negatively impacted sales.
Overall, piracy does impact the bottom line of companies and even though one can make the argument that people who pirate would not have purchased it anyway, there are probably still many people who pirate even though they have the ability or would have wanted to purchsae the game. Thus you cannot say that pirating does not take from a company.
@IndiaTech They imported the original game, duh!
If a game publisher wanted you to "import" a title they would have either would have published a lock free version or published a local version. The very reason why a publisher utilizes region lock is to prevent "unauthorized" "imports" or in layman's term piracy.
If a game publisher wanted you to "import" a title they would have either would have published a lock free version or published a local version. The very reason why a publisher utilizes region lock is to prevent "unauthorized" "imports" or in layman's term piracy.
Man you got the wrong idea on piracy. Piracy is unauthorized duplication of software whereas importing is buying authorize copy from another county. See the difference?
Break the rules, suffer the consequences.
The big question here is whether the MS (or any other console company for the matter) has the right to set rules.
After all, no commercial company should be allowed to write laws and dictate what consumers might or might not do with the purchased good. Up to some point it is OK, but afterwards it is pure anti-trust.
With growth of video game market it's only natural that gov't would start regulating them. Especially the matter of "points" being not money. I still can't get around why cellcos have to treat your pre-paid account as money, but for video game companies it's just a number on a sheet of paper.
@Dummy00001 It's an "agreement" that was set before you bought the console. You agree to it that's why you bought it in the first place. This is not a so called "law" at all.
@Dummy00001 They aren't telling you what you can do with the console, they're telling you what kind of consoles are allowed on their managed network - to which they have a full right to dictate.
They're preventing these modified consoles from accessing the Xbox Live service, which is a completely separate part of the system and not inherently part of your purchase. People are saying that some offline functionality may break - as far as I know, only added features (such as install to disc) are disabled; the unit will still function as it did on Day 1 launch
@Dummy00001
It's basic contract law the people in question or suing because they were paid Live Gold members so this throws out Silver members that weren't paying anything. So going by this basis a contract is formed for services to be rendered by Microsoft to the end user through Xbox Live. The user violated a term of said contract, these dumb SOB's should be lucky Microsoft isn't suing them for break of contract. The contract stated that they would not be refunded for services expect in certain circumstances as outline. Getting your dumb ass banned for violating the TOS, is not one of those reasons. Maybe people should read contracts before they agree to them, might keep these sorts of lawsuits from waiting a bunch of time and tax dollars.
It is pretty simple: mod your system and run the risk of being booted. Everyone that owns an Xbox that has even a modicum of intelligence should know that this is the risk you take if you mod your system.
Honestly, I don't even care that my console was booted. I do my multiplayer on my PC and mostly just use my 360 as a media extender. Now I can just play games prerelease with more impunity since the worst has already happened :)
Really? Some people are just idiots. You're breaking the law. It's just like software piracy for PCs. People complain and think it's so unjust when the law comes after you, but what would happen if you stole that same PC game from Best Buy? Much worse things!
@Clete R. Blackwell II
A modded console is not necessarily breaking a "law" that I know of. Of course it can facilitate breaking the law, sure. But the problem is that it violates MS's Terms of Service - which is why these people were banned. I'm pretty sure that's not actually a law.
@ack154 My bad. Most people I know personally who mod consoles do it for pirated games. Yeah, it can be used for homebrew too.
@Clete R. Blackwell II Yea but they can shut down your software but not cause damage to the PC
@adamsterrence What does that mean? The consoles weren't damaged.
@thedman07 yes there are being damaged functionality is being affected that has nothing to do with live. I.E. HDD being corrupted which basically means everything you have used or stored and have on your drive can not be transferred to another drive. Like a friend he had paid for several games via the download a game option on live now that his HDD has been corrupted he can move that stuff. Doing this has nothing to do with live. Not everybody gets done this way some people get lucky and it does not happen but most just did not have there HDD connected to there xbox when it was banned or there man profile was on a memory unit but not on the drive itself
You are right that it is not illegal. No more than using p2p file sharing tech is as well ( for anyone that plays wow this is how you get your updates so dont pull some piratebay line ).
1. its TERMS OF USE. not service. and there is no listing of modifying as far as banning. or banning for that matter is not in there. The closest you can get to this is they have the right to suspend service at anytime. And that banning FAQ. is nothing I have EVER aggreed to in order to use xblive.
HOWEVER if they do not give cause (a reason) then they must provide a prorate credit for service. They are not giving a reason only that bull could be but not limited to statement.
There are legit reasons for modding xboxs. You do have a right to make backup copies of your games (for those that have kids that tear up everything) or consoles that scratch a ring into the disc.
And what about the patch needed for some games to fix issues with launch discs. these are not even allowed. These are things i have issues with .
And no i dont download games. I have a legit and a modded. the modded played my backups for my fps that greed has decided to not provide 4 person on screen. so i have to have two consoles. 2 games. and a system link in order to do what i should be able to do for a console that supports 4 CONTROLLERS!!!
In that case, your beef is with the studio who made the game, and decided to not code in local multiplayer. Not the console manufacturer. A game studio is not obligated to include in a feature for you, either.
See, if this was "just like PC gaming", MS wouldn't cripple your hardware. That's right, I said *YOUR* hardware.
I can accept being banned from Live and even having my Live profile removed, but what I can't accept is the modifications THEY are doing to the consoles (flashing it with crippling firmware).
Then again, I don't really care as the modder community is always one step ahead. Changing your box's firmware back to its pre-ban state is oh-so-simple. After that, just enable write protection to the NAND and presto.
The first reason? Stupid. The second? Kinda makes sense. I lost the ability to play games I paid for and use the hard drive that I also paid for to install games.
If that gets fixed, yay. If not, no sweat. its really small beans and I'm surprised at what constitutes a lawsuit these days.
@Ghen
They are just banned from live, the xbox isnt unusable.
@Bryan I know, because I'm using it still. But when they banned us from xbl they also removed hardware functionality. Since I paid for the hardware and I own it I'm technically allowed to still use it in any way I please as long as I purchase games from now on. The problems are minor, but still significant as a beach of fair use.
@Ghen
Did they remove features of the hardware as shipped or features that were enabled by being a member of x-box live (silver or gold)? Since they don't ship with the copy to HD feature, you lost then when you lost access to live.
You can still play your 'backup copies' of your games, just not online or with feature that are enabled by being part of live.
@ERock
I purchased a new console 2 weeks before the ban. It shipped with the ability to copy to hard drive as well as steam media from my computer. Your current argument makes sense for older consoles, but every single banned console including ones that can be purchased today, hacked, and banned lose those abilities.
If you look, I'll bet it states that those features are contingent upon being connected to Xbox Live. As in, if you're not connected, you can't use those features.
You never had to be connected to Live to copy a disc to the HDD. I never attached my xbox to the network before I got my Live sub through Sam's Club, and I copied several games to the HDD. For my particular console, I got the update through Live, but Ghen's argument is that his box came w/ the functionality out of the box. I do remember media streaming worked out of the box for me back in 2007 too...