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News Microsoft will not apologise for Xbox bans

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 13 Nov 2009.

  1. TheUn4seen

    TheUn4seen What's a Dremel?

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    Lol @ brainwashed people thinking that piracy is evil. I know lots of people that bought a game (or a movie) just because they downloaded and liked it. And learn about the the difference between stealing (removing the original) and copying. But banning people that played pirated copies before release date is nice - stupidity should be punished on all occasions.
     
  2. M7ck

    M7ck Ⓜod Ⓜaster

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    Fact is that downloading movies/music/games IS illegal, im sure some people do end up buying the full retail product however it in no way makes up for downloading it in the first place.
     
  3. NuTech

    NuTech Minimodder

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    Eh, I really dislike it when people limit the scope of the definition of stealing simply to support their own arguement.

    If you pirate a game, yes you may not be stealing a physical object, but you are stealing the intellectual property owners ability to ever sell you that product.

    Now an acceptable counter arguement could be that only the pirate themselves could ever know whether or not possessing that illegal copy will ever prevent them from purchasing a legal copy. Such an example could be pirating a game for the single player experience but then deciding you must play the multiplayer, therefore deciding to purchase a copy.

    However, those who claim the amount of people who pirate a game and then go on to purchase said game equals (or comes close) those who pirate a game and never purchase it, well, they're just crazy. No way, no how are those two numbers even close to each other.
     
  4. do_it_anyway

    do_it_anyway Minimodder

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    Sadly, In my experience, yes.
    I have lost count of the number of arguments I have had with someone at work who has had his daughters Wii "altered" with the famous game save, and now uses only pirated discs, as well as buying pirate DS games for her as well. The reason? Its just too expensive to get her all the games she wants! Sadly society dictates we must get our kids what they want RIGHT NOW. Hence why people pay 3x the cost for the must have toy each christmas. The same people then might want their darlings to have the latest games, on release day, or maybe even before. What great parents they would be to get the game the day before release!!!!!

    And to the people who think its unfair to buy one thats already been chipped? Have you ever bought a car thats been written off, or stolen. You get nothing back. Not a sausage.
     
  5. capnPedro

    capnPedro Hacker. Maker. Engineer.

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    You're misinterpreting the law. It's illegal for him to make a profit by selling the service of supplying hardware designed to allow piracy.

    It's dumb if you ask me; a hammer is a tool but it can also be used for burglary. Doesn't mean it should be illegal to sell.

    Back on the original topic, though I think Microsoft are right to ban modded consoles from online play. You agree to the terms of service of Live. If they bricked consoles I'd be annoyed (you should be able to do what you want to hardware you own) and one of the agreements is everyone plays on a level field (the same hardware). No hacks. No mods.

    Preventing piracy is just a side effect of this rule, but it's a good thing.
     
  6. Star*Dagger

    Star*Dagger What's a Dremel?

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    Stealing from Evil corporations is not a crime, more like "Way to Go!"
     
  7. DarkLord7854

    DarkLord7854 What's a Dremel?

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    Stealing is stealing no matter who from.
     
  8. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    Well, technically he's not misinterpreting the law, in the sense that the action of modifying consoles for profit is illegal, as that case illustrates. I doubt whether if he was giving them away he would have gotten away with it, though I'm afraid there's no case reference supplied and I don't study IP 'til next year... It's a poor comparison with hammers, though. Hammers have a legal purpose - craft - and are misused in the criminal acts of burglary or assault/battery, much like needles have a legal purpose - medicine - and are misused in the criminal act of administering illegal drugs. Mod chips, on the other hand, have no legitimate purpose - they exist solely for the purpose of circumventing restrictions and enabling consoles to play games that they are not supposed to. Whether that's the morally legitimate copies-of-games-bought-legally, or the less-so games-I-torrented, it doesn't make any difference in the eyes of the law.

    Lol @ people in denial about the motives, outcomes, and morals of piracy. Lots of people buy what they pirate, sure. But the huge majority do not, particularly with music. Also;
    1. There is no legal distinction between "stealing (removing the original)" and piracy. You don't buy the physical game so much as you buy a licence to play it; it's the same with DVDs and CDs - it's not the physical matter that matters but the incorporeal license. Unfortunately, guess what? Piracy is theft of licence. In a legal sense, piracy = theft.
    2. There is no moral distinction between them either. In legal terms, you enjoy the unjust benefit of the product either way. In a moral sense, piracy = theft.
    3. At least if you shoplifted the damn thing, it would be the retailers' margins that suffer. With piracy the game developer whose hard work you've nicked and are enjoying without recompense is suffering because they never even managed to sell the game to a distributor before you stole it.

    I like especially the distinction you draw between pirating, which is apparently OK, and getting caught pirating, which is somehow not. :duh:

    And now - the end of the thread hijack!
     
    M7ck likes this.
  9. birdmaniw

    birdmaniw What's a Dremel?

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    Whilst I agree That it is right for Microsoft to ban users of modded Xboxs from Xbox Live I think they are wrong to not allow them back onto Xbox Live if they un-mod their Xbox. I can see this causing a lot of problems on auction sites such as Ebay when someone unwittingly buys an Xbox that has at some time in its life been modded and thrown off Xbox Live. Are Microsoft prepared to compensate those that unwiitingly buy one of these machines? I think not. Mind you the other side of the coin is that if Microsoft reduced the prices of the games by 50% then people would not be so keen to pirate them and in any case Microsoft would sell far more games and I doubt would notice the 50% price reduction. But still they wont do that because, like the music and film industry, they want to rip us off and screw us for every penny they can.
     
  10. capnPedro

    capnPedro Hacker. Maker. Engineer.

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    Iwasn't really trying to distinguish between profit/non-profit, more commercial/personal use. Modding your console for personal use, to run backups should not be illegal. See fair use. Software companies keep banging on about how you never buy software, it's just licensed. If it's licensed, it should matter what medium it's being run from because you're paying for the content, not the disc.

    Yeah, I agree it is a bad comparison. But again, a mod chip can be a device to enable fair use. Legitimate use.

    Disclaimer: my Xbox is not chipped and I own two dozen legit games. I don't even buy into the whole 'backup idea' I've been gaming since I was 6 and never scratched a disc in my life. Still, I'll fight for fair use and freedom of speech to the grave.
     
  11. ZERO <ibis>

    ZERO <ibis> Minimodder

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    This is going to be bad when someone buys one of those things used and realized it does not work online...
     
  12. Thedarkrage

    Thedarkrage Thats not a pic of me its my gf

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    trust me in game we have been having ppl bring them in to trade for a another used 360 lol only costing them £55 some have even got ps3s instead
     
  13. NuTech

    NuTech Minimodder

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    Is GAME testing them or selling them on with a warning about the ban?
     
  14. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    I absolutely agree, I just wish there was a better way to distinguish Fair Use applications from blatant rip-offs.

    I'm interested to hear what Game and other part-exchangers are doing about it. If I bought an XBox secondhand from them and it was blocked I'd be pretty pissed and, I think, well within my rights to return it. If it's being sold as 'in working order' that's likely to be included, I fear.
     
  15. general22

    general22 What's a Dremel?

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    This is some pretty dodgy stuff by MS,I agree they can ban you whenever they like from their own service but disabling 360 features like media extender and hard drive installs should not be allowed and if I had a modded console then I would look at legal options against MS. It is not their hardware and I challenge someone to show me where they have a provision to remove advertised features from your console.
     
  16. Krazeh

    Krazeh Minimodder

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    There's been plenty of studies done that show that people who have downloaded music actually end up buying more of it.

    If there's no legal distinction then why do 'pirates' get prosecuted for copyright infringement rather than theft? It's because downloading a copy of a game, or a movie, or music is not theft in a legal sense. To constitute theft you have to dishonestly appropriate property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it, which is not the case when you create a copy of an item and leave the original with the owner.

    In your opinion that is. Just because you equate piracy to theft in a moral sense doesn't make it an absolute truth.

    Considering that most people who pirate games would likely not have bought the item anyway then I don't see how you think it's better that retailers end up buying items they're not gonna shift just so game developers can feel good about creating a game noone wanted to buy.

    And I really dislike it when people extend the definition of stealing simply to support their own argument.

    You're doing no such thing, pirating a game doesn't in anyway alter the property owners ability to sell you the physical product. Just because you've downloaded a copy of a game doesn't mean you can't, or won't, go out and buy a copy. At most it may make you realise that something you were going to spend 40 quid on is actually uttter dross and not worth more than 20 minutes of your time but for anything decent you were either not going to buy it in the first place, or will end up buying it regardless of having downloaded a copy.

    I'm sure the numbers aren't anywhere close to each other but in the same vein the number of "lost sales" claimed by publishers is nowhere close to the number of people who would have actually bought a copy but didn't because they pirated it instead.
     
    Last edited: 14 Nov 2009
  17. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Greetings!
    People that buy music, want music for free also?
    And the more people buy, the more they want for free?
     
  18. M7ck

    M7ck Ⓜod Ⓜaster

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    Are you just pissed off because you have been banned from live?

    I have NEVER seen any such study and I challenge you to provide a link to any reputable study and results of this. Im sure you cant because the only people that claim pirates buy also are the thieving *******s themselves when they are trying to justify theft.
     
    Last edited: 14 Nov 2009
  19. Krazeh

    Krazeh Minimodder

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    No, people who download music end up buying more of it. The fact is the ability to download music opens people up to genres/artists that they otherwise would not have even considered buying. I've seen it happen with several people and i've done it myself so it does happen.

    I don't recall ever saying I condoned piracy but yes I am claiming that piracy is not theft, for the simple reason that it isn't. You can argue that point as much as you like but until a change in the law piracy isn't, and cannot be, theft. And yes I also think that there is a moral difference between theft, where someone loses a tangible object, and piracy where all that is lost is some hypothetical object or construct. I'm not saying either is right or acceptable but there is a difference between the two.

    Well done, I see you're a subscriber to the school of "I can't come up with a decent counter-argument so i'll resort to insults". Just because I don't subscribe to your view that piracy is the heinous crime you'd like to make it out to be or that it's as damaging to the industry as certain bodies would have us believe does not make mean that I make a habit of pirating or stealing things. Nor does my view have anything to do with whether or not I may have been banned from xbox live, which btw I haven't.

    Perhaps you should take off your blinkers and take a look around then? A quick google search brings up several results including an article from arstechnica that discusses a report from the BI Norwegian School of Management and also links to a report about a 2006 study by the Canadian Record Industry Association, both of which concluded that people who downloaded music ended up buying more. And then there's this article which discusses a study by Demos which again found that people who download music spend more than people who don't download.

    But then again I suppose the BI Norwegian School of Management, the Canadian Record Industry Association and Demos must all be groups of thieving *******s mustn't they? After all no rational minded individual could possibly come to a conclusion that differs from that forced down our necks by those bodies with a vested interest in ensuring that the purchase and consumption of media remains the way it's been for the last 50-60 years.
     
  20. M7ck

    M7ck Ⓜod Ⓜaster

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    The links you have posted are laughable, neither shows any results and combined have less than 3000 people participating.

    Also you have a record label (EMI) rubbishing the claims.

    I do apologise for the 'insults' and did edit them out 15 mins before you posted, however I did mention you are only a low life loser IF YOU STEAL. You have since admitted you have stolen (theft is theft no matter how you try to dress it up) so maybe the comment should stand?
     
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