Okay Geek Farm
Got Banned from Xbox live for a mod you didn't commit? Take MS to court!
Ricardo Trejo
Or so one law firm by the name of Abington IP wants to do.
About two weeks ago Microsoft banned about 1 million accounts from its LIVE service because of detected mods and other such things on consoles. There was a bit of a backlash since Modern Warfare 2, Left4Dead 2, and other hit games who utilize Xbox live were about to ship to market. The actual pirates and modifiers themselves fought back, even going so far as calling Stephen Toulouse, the enforcer of all things on Xbox Live, and sending him death threats.
But what if you bought your console used, and weren't even aware that you system was modded? Any lenience in that situation? Not at all. Mr. Toulouse, otherwise known as his gamertag, 'StepTo', had this to say on last week's Xbox Major Nelson's Podcast:
"If you bought your console new, from a reputable source, never been opened, then you have nothing to worry about. This is people who have physically opened the console, or in some cases bought them used, or secondhand, and we have talked about this before - Buyer beware! I've had one or two people come up to me and say, 'I see that it's modified. I see that I've been been banned, but I bought it used. I didn't do it my myself. Could you un-ban me?'
Unfortunately, no - it's still modified. We cannot allow that back onto the service."
-Stephen Toulouse, Director of Policy and Enforcement for Xbox Live
So because of this strict policy, some of these secondhand console buyers are feeling a little bit more than irate, as they weren't really aware of this sort of thing happening - although it's happened before in the past. But anyway, this Abington IP law firm wants to file a class suit against Microsoft, representing this part of innocent gamers who were jipp'd out of Xbox Live.
I doubt this will lead anywhere. Microsoft has the right to do whatever they want with their service. Buying a used product means being seen as a second class citizen to companies anyway, since you aren't really contributing to their cause. Really, I don't see what anyone can do except just go out and get an Xbox for Black Friday or Christmas.
[Kotaku]
