Microsoft issues XBL permabans to illegit Forza 3, Borderlands players


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And all of your gamerscore... and XBLA games...

If you have a modded 360 then your really not worried about your XBLA games as you can just go download them for free...as for Gamerscore, tons of people don't give a crap about the meaningless score...my current score is over 20k and if MS wiped it today it wouldn't really affect me at all since its a meaningless number.

The amount of people who plays games purely to try to get an uber gamerscore is a lot lower than everything thinks.

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If you have a modded 360 then your really not worried about your XBLA games as you can just go download them for free...as for Gamerscore, tons of people don't give a crap about the meaningless score...my current score is over 20k and if MS wiped it today it wouldn't really affect me at all since its a meaningless number.

The amount of people who plays games purely to try to get an uber gamerscore is a lot lower than everything thinks.

Did you just speak out of your ass?

I think you did.

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Yes, then you might also have to stop "assuming" a lot of things about other people and stop trying to bulldoze your opinion and ridicule others because you don't see eye to eye.

Nowhere did I say my opinion was right and neither did you. I consistently play the devil's advocate on Neowin to show people that there are other sides to a story so it doesn't become a giant "groupthink".

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Are you serious? Maybe it is just me being frugal (as usual) but $40 or $200 (for a new Arcade/Core) is a HUGE difference. For $160 dollars difference, I could care less about my freaking achievements. Do people take them that seriously?

I am sick of hearing people use the phrase "could care less". If you could care less, that implies that you care somewhat. The phrase is "couldn't care less"

So, I'd like to point your attention to this website, http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html, where you can read more about this matter

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What if he meant that, yeah he could care less, not by much, but it is possible.

Also is it known that they only ban accounts ? are you sure they don't ban both console and accounts now ?

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I am sick of hearing people use the phrase "could care less". If you could care less, that implies that you care somewhat. The phrase is "couldn't care less"

So, I'd like to point your attention to this website, http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html, where you can read more about this matter

Thanks that is an interesting article. I used it in the sense that I care to a very little extent (could care less) not in the extent of I don't care at all (couldn't).

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but when people say ''could care less'' they could care about it a lot :p

This grammar lesson is killing me. How about we just toss out the phrase. I would rather pay $40 than $200. Hopefully nothing in there gets grammatically construed. :laugh:

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This grammar lesson is killing me. How about we just toss out the phrase. I would rather pay $40 than $200. Hopefully nothing in there gets grammatically construed. :laugh:

If you have to pay $40 that means the account is banned - meaning the console is still flashed. Either way the console will be banned.

And personally, I'd rather pay $200 than $240.

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Yeah that's right MS are generous sometimes and say "Oh it's Christmas, little Jonny here has played 200 pirates games, but we'll be kind and not ban him".

Best explanation is if the rip checks out with retail discs it's essentially a perfect clone and you should be fine. Problem is there's been a lot of dodgy rips, many being massively anticipated titles, things like COD/Halo 3, etc, pirates can't help themselves and when a "P2P" rip hits half of them download it then get banned.

Because the banhammer tends to hit months/year later it causes mass hysteria and everyone trying to put the finger on what caused all the bans. There's so much **** talking during a banhammer stage, people claiming all they've done is install the firmware, not played any games, others saying they didn't touch any bad rips, etc.

All your friends, paid marketplace content, achievements, email address and everything can be tied to your live account.

One is a hole in your pocket from cash, the other is taking away a personal connection to your 360. I can easily see how account banning would deter pirates more.

All you need to have is hundreds of dollars worth of content purchased on the marketplace and that's a bitch. I am assuming there's no way to access that content ever again if you're banned?

See thats not how it works.. This is my guess.. The game discs all have different codes on them.. when a game is ripped and uploaded to p2p and someone downloads it, and thousands more download it, and play it online, it shows that theres thousands of copies of the same disc code online.

That's just an assumption, which would make sense.

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If you have to pay $40 that means the account is banned - meaning the console is still flashed. Either way the console will be banned.

And personally, I'd rather pay $200 than $240.

No, as Kotaku and several other sites have pointed out, this isn't like the previous ban waves (where the entire console was banned). This time around just the connected XBL account is being banned. I can't remember if it was Kotaku or not that had a commentor say he was banned, but as back online within minutes after he created a new XBL account.

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See thats not how it works.. This is my guess.. The game discs all have different codes on them.. when a game is ripped and uploaded to p2p and someone downloads it, and thousands more download it, and play it online, it shows that theres thousands of copies of the same disc code online.

That's just an assumption, which would make sense.

That was my theory from when Fall out 3 got leaked last year, but that's not how it works, it's done by bad rips and such. The xbox 360 dvd drive sends/blocks certain data from being sent to MS once it's been flashed (I'm pretty sure it can block data being sent to the MS guys). But if a game is badly ripped then played, then the data sent to MS will be obvious.

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See thats not how it works.. This is my guess.. The game discs all have different codes on them.. when a game is ripped and uploaded to p2p and someone downloads it, and thousands more download it, and play it online, it shows that theres thousands of copies of the same disc code online.

That's just an assumption, which would make sense.

Not a chance or practically every single person who's ever played online with a copy would be banned.

That's not the case, lots of the pirates who are sensible/careful have been playing online for years.

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It's wrong though.

producing those disk would be highly expensive since they would need to be individually burned. whereas disks in production are actually "stamped" or pressed, from master disks, wich have the inverse pattern of the data on them.

good solution, but way to costly. Though some PC games used this method to store the cd key, where the cd key was actually stored on the diskand automatically added when you installed the game.

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I figure I would pipe in, after reading Kushan's post on a certain website. Now that Microsoft is issuing bans to the account rather than the console itself, one has to wonder if they are liable in anyway for rendering one's DLC useless. Are Microsoft legally able to prevent you from using content you have legally purchased because you have illegally downloaded and played another game?

I've never read the EULA's, but I would think this is a concern. Whether or not you are performing illegal copy-protection circumvention methods has nothing to do with the new outcome you are facing. Microsoft cannot legally take away your legitimate games/accessories away from you, so why should they be able to take away your digital purchases?

I think that for anyone that does get banned, they should contact an attorney. I understand that piracy/hacking has a negative impact on Microsoft's profit margin, but this does not excuse them in negligence, especially when people with actual review copies have been banned as well. This is obviously not an automated process or the amount of people banned would be higher, but this is still not foolproof. I don't think Microsoft has a 100% method of figuring out who is playing pirated copies, but this is exactly why they must continue to proceed with caution. If I were falsely banned, I would be absolutely livid and I can arguably understand why other users would be extremely mad.

If you are targeted falsely as a pirate and banned, are you refunded some amount of money for the time you couldn't access your content/games while they figured this out? I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of people banned a day, so unless they have a huge team working on this, I would expect reversal of bans to be a long, drawn out procedure. I believe with this new method of banning, Microsoft is now treading on thin ice, and if they wrongly ban a "legal" player, they are going to find themselves in a possible class action lawsuit.

Obviously intellectual property/copyright laws have not caught up with this system of distribution.

The only reason I am bringing this up is I am heavily against Digital Rights Management and have had problems in the past with Microsoft's own system when my last two consoles died. I was also falsely banned a few years ago and it was overturned when I proved I was not using pirated games. This was in the infant stages of Xbox Live, so it only took a few days to be overturned and I was issued a free game because of it.

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IIRC with digital content all you're doing is buying a license to play, I would assume if you break T&C of the online service that license can be revoked, and yeah, void your purchases.

Legitimate owners have nothing to worry about, it's a pretty fool proof system in the legal sense, only those that void the T&C get banned. I've not once heard of MS ever banning someone's system with a legal copy, at least not an outcry that is proved and not a pirate crying down the phone line that they are legit.

MS are not on thin ice, you the user accepts the T&C. That is why 95% of those stupid lawsuits coming out of Texas or Florida aimed at MS/Sony/Nintendo never gather any weight.

This is also why account banning will cull piracy, if you have any care at all for your XBLA purchases/gamescore/friends and integrity (all your friends will know you've been banned).

People can't pirate XBLA games, so there's a good chance most pirates have a few purchases in the bank - Even possibly things like Rockband/Guitar Hero DLC.

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Not true, as I was falsely banned years ago. When humans are doing any process, it is not fool proof. When you purchase a DVD, you are still purchasing a license, as you do not own the game or any of the code. This is where I would love to have an attorney on this forum that is actively engaged in the gaming community (not jacko) to read the TOS (not T&C :p).

Neowin has had many discussions about whether or not a EULA is legal in the first place. When I signed up for Xbox Live, I sincerely doubt there was a subsection for restricting your DRM content when circumventing copy protection on other games. Further more, there is not a single thing in the licensing terms when you purchase content off of live. Unless there is something in the Xbox Live TOS regarding this, it could be looked upon as illegal. It is all a matter of legal interpretation.

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Not true, as I was falsely banned years ago. When humans are doing any process, it is not fool proof. When you purchase a DVD, you are still purchasing a license, as you do not own the game or any of the code. This is where I would love to have an attorney on this forum that is actively engaged in the gaming community (not jacko) to read the TOS (not T&C :p).

Neowin has had many discussions about whether or not a EULA is legal in the first place. When I signed up for Xbox Live, I sincerely doubt there was a subsection for restricting your DRM content when circumventing copy protection on other games. Further more, there is not a single thing in the licensing terms when you purchase content off of live. Unless there is something in the Xbox Live TOS regarding this, it could be looked upon as illegal. It is all a matter of legal interpretation.

If you break MS' T&C they can do what they want within those T&C, end of.

It's a closed system, you're buying content out of it, that content is tied to that system. A DVD in a shop isn't tied to a system, isn't tied to DRM, isn't part of an account. That's your pluses of digital distribution :p

I assume you were able to prove you shouldn't of been banned or MS found out after checking? My point still stands if you DO break T&C and MS can prove it on their end, you're **** out of luck, better luck next time.

This is not a matter of legal interpretation it's a matter of "no one ever reads T&C just accepts them then cries wolf when MS act upon their T&C to do something unfavourable to your account/console" :p

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Lesson learned: If you pirate games, play them when the game hits the store, not before.

Unless you don't care about the Gamerscore, which in that case, play away whenever you want.

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Yes, I proved ownership. I still disagree with you in the **** out of luck. If I use iTunes and have downloaded mp3's are they legally allowed to take away my iTunes purchased content that has DRM? I'm not sure what you keep referring to as T&C, but it is TERMS OF SERVICE (TOS). Also, have you even read it yourself?

I haven't read it all, but I have read the TOS with DLC and there is nothing there about losing your ability to play purchased content if you are banned from the service. And it is a matter of legal interpretation. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have the current Apple/Psystar battle going on.

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Yes, I proved ownership. I still disagree with you in the **** out of luck. If I use iTunes and have downloaded mp3's are they legally allowed to take away my iTunes purchased content that has DRM? I'm not sure what you keep referring to as T&C, but it is TERMS OF SERVICE (TOS). Also, have you even read it yourself?

I haven't read it all, but I have read the TOS with DLC and there is nothing there about losing your ability to play purchased content if you are banned from the service. And it is a matter of legal interpretation. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have the current Apple/Psystar battle going on.

T&C = Terms and Conditions, probably wrong terminology but that's what I call it :laugh:

I don't see why you're comparing MS/Live to Apple/iTunes, every service is unique and has it's own conditions.

MS call it terms of use, read here - http://www.xbox.com/zh-SG/live/legal/termsofuse.htm

Quite simply states things like this throughout

You agree that we may also discontinue your access to the Service if you do any of the following while connected to the Service
The Service may only be accessed with an original Xbox, an Xbox 360 console, a personal computer, or other device authorized by us,or by logging into your account via Xbox.com. You agree that you are using only authorized software and hardware to access the Service, that your software and hardware have not been modified in any unauthorized way (e.g., through unauthorized repairs, unauthorized upgrades, or unauthorized downloads), and that we have the right to send data, applications or other content to any software or hardware that you are using to access the Service for the express purpose of detecting an unauthorized modification. Any attempt to disassemble, decompile, create derivative works of, reverse engineer, modify, further sublicense, distribute, or use for other purposes the Service, any game, application, or other content available or accessible through the Service, or any hardware or software associated with the Service or with an original Xbox or Xbox 360 console is strictly prohibited and may result in cancellation of your account and/or your ability to access the Service, and the pursuit of other legal remedies by Microsoft. Microsoft may take any legal action it deems appropriate against users who violate Microsoft's systems or network security, this contract or any additional terms incorporated or referenced in this contract, and such users may also incur criminal or civil liability.

It's absolutely simple Unrealistic, you break anything outlined in those terms that YOU have accepted, and MS are allowed to carry out the necessary action. Don't pirate if you don't want your XBL account banned, do pirate, and take the risk.

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