Law Firm Mulls Class Action Suit for Xbox Live Modders, Of Course
By Benjamin Opal
Shunned Xbox 360 modders calling for Microsoft’s downfall? This looks like a job for Abington IP, a law firm that’s now looking into a possible class action law suit over the ban of modded Xbox 360s from Xbox Live. Abington says that while console modding is “arguably” against Microsoft’s terms of service for Xbox Live (I don’t know what’s to argue, as the language seems clear to me), Microsoft “conveniently” timed the bans to coincide with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3: ODST. As a result, Abington notes that Microsoft earned a lot of subscription revenue, plus a lot of game sales revenue before dropping the banhammer. And that’s wrong, but is it legally wrong?
Joystiq’s legal columnist Mark Methinitis says baiting people into those purchases only to render them mostly worthless could be considered a deceptive business practice, but it’s not clear whether that’s the case. I’ll add that pirates who were banned probably didn’t buy the games in question anyway, and Abington’s claim on subscription revenue is limited to people who recently purchased an Xbox Live account. But there’s also collateral damage to consider, to people who modded their consoles but didn’t pirate games, and other disabled functionality that has nothing to do with Xbox Live. In any case, Abington’s looking for more people to speak up through the firm’s Web site. [via Joystiq]
