Microsoft and the Xbox

[DawnFalcon]

"We"

Ah, a multiple personality. My bad for feeding the troll everyone, but that explains that...

[HarryT]

Gentlemen, please; discuss this politely or we'll have to close the thread.

Thank you.

[Moderator]

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

"We"

Ah, a multiple personality. My bad for feeding the troll everyone, but that explains that...

When referring to a collective, such as the members of MR, of which the poster is a member, it is correct to use "we".

For example....

DawnFalcon hopes that we(the members of MR, of which I am one) will all grovel at his/her feet and beg for more of his/her unverified and unsubstantiated claims.

Are there any other grammatical lessons along with law lessons you would like in order to increase your comprehension and understanding?

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Billjr13]

So If I disagree with your point of view I am a pandering troll? I am not a troll and my view is just as valid as yours. I find it strange that certain groups complain how unfair an implied contract is with MS but only when they are not holding up their end of the agreement. If you mod your XBOX you cant use XBOX Live. Pretty simple. If MS blocks you from XBOX Live because you have modified your machine too bad. If you dont like it dont buy it.
It is the same with piracy and drug users I dont like the law so I will ignore it, and the law is stupid and wrong. Well guess what just because you dont like the laws doesnt mean that you wont be punished for breaking it. Mod your XBOX and get caught, MS will punish you by blocking you, smoke dope or pirate software and when you get caught you will be punished by law enforcement.
Once again just because I dont agree with you doesnt make me a troll. If Microsoft is so wrong here sue them. If the many thousands of customers have been wronged by having their access blocked, as you say, how come not one lawsuit has been filed? Because they dont have a case maybe?

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Billjr13

If the many thousands of customers have been wronged by having their access blocked, as you say, how come not one lawsuit has been filed? Because they dont have a case maybe?

There have been lawsuits, just none successful, and as far as I know, no major class action suit yet.

[Billjr13]

That is true and I guess what I ment, successful suits. I guess you could sue NASA for going to the moon (or not going to the moon ) but winning is a whole other matter.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Billjr13

So If I disagree with your point of view I am a pandering troll?

Have you engaged in the particular behavior the person I said that of? If you haven't, then no it dosn't apply to you. I'd suggest you have a guilty conscience if you think it does. (I doubt you're a multiple personality either, they're not that common)

I would point out that Contractual law is civil, not criminal - it's a simply innacurate to compare the situation to criminal law. And what does Piracy have to do with Unauthorised Copying? I don't see any ships arround here, can we please use the correct term and stop feeding a certain counter-culture which revels in using it as a term of defiance.

If Microsoft is so wrong here sue them.

Please look up "Privity". I have no standing to file a civil case on the matter, because I am not affected by their action. And there are several cases which have been filed in the UK...one may be getting a date as early as febuary. The case is that they did not mod their Xbox, incidentally (it was new), and were still banned, and bluntly it's a strong case.

Regardless of all that, a million boxes useable only for pirate games are going to do a lot of damage to the industry in the next few years.


Hellmark - Oh? Case numbers please.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Billjr13

...
It is the same with piracy and drug users I dont like the law so I will ignore it, and the law is stupid and wrong. Well guess what just because you dont like the laws doesnt mean that you wont be punished for breaking it....

You seem to be confusing laws with EULAs.

But, regardless..., if laws were immutable, slavery would still be common, women would still be banned from voting, and once a year we'd have to make offerings to the divine Roman Emperor.

Anyway, I am happy to see a few pure angels here, who have never disobeyed any authority, rejoice gleefully, that the murderous devils have been banished from the heaven of Live.

[dmaul1114]

I don't think we really need to get into extremes of comparing EULAs to crimes and so forth.

The fact of the matter is EULAs are what they are. And you either:

1. Abide by them.

2. Don't buy the product because you don't want to abide by it. And preferably contact the company and let them know why you're not buying their product.

3. Buy it, break the EULA and deal with the clearly stated consequences.

or...lastly...

4. Buy it, break it, and sue to try to change the EULA. Bitching about it online isn't going to solve anything. Law suits--at least in this case--probably won't do any good as the EULA is pretty reasonable in my view and I don't really see any issues with it--at least in US legal terms. But at least it stands a chance vs. getting in silly pissing matches on a freaking e-book forum.

[DawnFalcon]

dmaul - Sure, if you want to admit that the media industries are dead. This is a war of attitudes, and unless there's a change the media industry in a decade won't be a shadow of the existing one. Oh, book may hold up, but the rest? Erk.

I'd love to think I was being melodramatic, but I'm really really not. So a games dev, I'm going to stand up and say when a company bans a million, with questionable accuracy and quite possibly doing nasty, long term harm to its potential customer base. A RIAAish move, in other words.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

I would point out that Contractual law is civil, not criminal - it's a simply innacurate to compare the situation to criminal law.

In civil law the burden of proof is still on the claimant not the defendant.

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

And what does Piracy have to do with Unauthorised Copying? I don't see any ships arround here, can we please use the correct term and stop feeding a certain counter-culture which revels in using it as a term of defiance.

As a convenient example, have you ever referred to a homosexual person as gay? Isn't the original meaning of "gay" happy, full of fun, merry? Why now is it used to refer to homosexual people?

Ever called someone a Dag? Are they really a bit of sheep feaces and wool hanging from a sheeps bum? Why now is it used to refer to someone who is a bit different, a bit weird?

Could it be because language is a changing and evolving thing? Could it be that words take on new meanings through common usage?

In todays world the word piracy is used to refer to copyright infringement. Deal with it!

Cheers,
PKFFW

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Anyway, I am happy to see a few pure angels here, who have never disobeyed any authority, rejoice gleefully, that the murderous devils have been banished from the heaven of Live.

Who here claims to have been a pure angel who has never disobeyed any authority?

Maybe we have just taken a cup of harden the **** up and dealt with the known and at this time legally enforceable consequences of our actions when we have disobeyed authority rather than whinging and whining about how we shouldn't have to.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

... Bitching about it online isn't going to solve anything. ...
... silly pissing matches on a freaking e-book forum.

Originally Posted by PKFFW

... rather than whinging and whining....

LOL..., the irony..., the irony...!

[Lo Zeno]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

I'd love to think I was being melodramatic, but I'm really really not.

You sure are.
This is an eBook forum... and you're using words and arguments that look more appropriate and would (probably) work better in your favour if you were writing in a forum of people with videogaming interests.

Incidentally, I am an avid videogamer (my first console was Mattel's Intellivision - oh, the fond memories) and nowadays I own almost all consoles still available. Some in two versions, modded and unmodded.
Also, I am one of those who would love to see Microsoft close up business, and be gone for good. I'm a linux user, an Android fanboy, and more.
Yet, since I was taught from a very early age that to fight your enemy you're better learn to use his weapons, I can't agree with you.

There were EULAs and T&Cs to accept before getting access to Xbox Live. Those who broke that agreement, are kicked off of Xbox Live. That's legitimate: you don't like that EULA? Don't buy an Xbox360, or buy it, mod it and don't use it for Live. You think that MS is evil? Well, then you should explain me why did you buy an Xbox360 from the Devil Incarnate, then.
Oh, just so you know: I do think MS is the Devil Incarnate. But the Devil il Lawful Evil, to speak in D&D terms, and as such it plays by the rules. In an evil way, but it does.
And I'm using "you" as in "impersonal you", not you DawnFalcon.

Also, following the principle "your hardware, my network", MS made people unable to access XboxLive from those banned consoles, but didn't "brick" their console (as Apple did with some iPhones, instead). Moreover, if your Xbox360 is banned from XboxLive, you aren't: you can just recover your profile from another unmodded console, and it will work just fine. So, you as a customer aren't kicked out of the service. Only the hardware you bought is: the agreement is that the customer uses only unmodded hardware to access XboxLive, and this is what is happening.

Regarding the unmodded consoles that supposedly were banned: I have found only TWO mentions of this.
One is a national newspaper (Corriere della Sera, italian newspaper) which barely gave the news a short article of 23 lines, and the other is this:
http://www.unrealplayground.com/foru...ad.php?t=52924

Both the newspaper and the forum linked above report this:

Some people are reporting that they purchased supposedly unmodded Xbox 360’s off of Craigslist very recently and found that they actually had been tampered with.

So, at least according to the only pieces of information available around the net and in newspapers, those who claim to have been banned despite not having modded their consoles are just people who were frauded by the vendor who sold them those consoles. Because, in fact, they were modded.

[DawnFalcon]

No, melodramatic are the declarations that the network owner is allways right. And this is a thread discussing consoles, if you didn't notice. I'm supposed to discuss e-readers in this thread?

Simply because something in an EULA does not make it legal, or even a good idea. Anyone here, oh, cracked DRM? Unlocked a phone? Concealed the country they come from to purchase content?

I ain't the one throwing melodrama.