
Microsoft Bans Halo 4 Pirates, and Some Idiots Absolutely Deserved It - anons2011
http://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-bans-halo-4-pirates-and-some-idiots-absolutely-deserved-it-121015/
======
Karunamon
This might come as a surprise to a lot of people (namely those of you who seem
shocked that torrentfreak is cheering on Microsoft), but just because someone
is generally anti copyright does not mean that they don't have soft spots for
certain companies or certain franchises, or that they rank spoiling a
blockbuster as a pretty crappy thing to do.

~~~
simba-hiiipower
i'd say it’s less-so 'cheering on' or having a soft spot for them, but rather,
they seem to have an understanding that, like it or not, copyright holders do
have a right to enforce their property, and that not to expect otherwise is
idiotic (especially when their enforcement is brought-down via denying access
to services they provide).

and while i agree that its surprising given the source, they do seem to take a
pretty pragmatic view on the issue. i mean we’re not talking about a record
industry suing a 13-year-old girl for sharing a few mp3s here.. to have done
this you would have had to seriously modify your console and probably violated
nearly every line in the service’s terms of use in the process. xbox live is a
service after all and they’re under no obligation to continue offering it to
those who egregiously abuse it.

~~~
rsynnott
Funny how standards differ, really; there'd be a lot of eyebrows raised if
Apple or Google (or Microsoft, on their mobile platform) started denying use
of their network services to jailbroken/rooted users.

~~~
simba-hiiipower
that really isn’t a fair comparison at all and i’d imagine if the article was
about them suspending accounts associated with any/all hacked consoles then
the tone would've been very different..

in this case, they’re denying access to their service to users who both:
violated the tos by messing with their devices, _and_ (more importantly)
utilized that to steal a product (one that cost likely in excess of $100MM to
develop).

even if you’re in favour of less restrictive copyright law, or against closed
systems in general, there still are, and in my opinion should-be, limits. and
i wouldn’t fault apple either if they locked-out jailbroken iphones that
allowed users to freely download paid app-store apps (or music/videos from
itunes), and i’m sure the developers of those apps (or content publishers)
would agree.

~~~
goatforce5
To go one or two steps further:

Would it be acceptable for Sony to boot you from Playstation services if they
detected you were watching a bootlegged copy of a $100m film from one of their
studios?

Should Apple close your iTunes account if Fox's movie studio tells them you're
watching $100m films on your Mac?

~~~
simba-hiiipower
it’s obviously a sticky situation and different people draw the line at
different places. some would probably argue that they should; i personally
wouldn’t.

where i draw the line (and where i _personally_ see a clear distinction), is
when the service itself is being utilized to facilitate the infringement. in
the examples you cite, the services (playstation network, itunes) are not
involved in the infringement, they just happen to be tied to devices on which
the infringement is taking place. i think it would be a different if case
people were freely streaming (paid) movies from the playstation store or
itunes; i feel that’s more analogous to what’s happening here because the
connectivity that comes with the service is tied to the product being stolen.

i guess it’s sort of an odd-line to draw, but that’s how i see it.

also, to clarify on my point from above, i didn’t mean to imply that the cost
to develop/produce the good ia necessarily a major factor, nor should the fact
that it be from the same entity that runs the service; $100MM to microsoft is
no-different than a couple thousand to an indie dev and, in both cases, it’s
in the service provider’s best interest to prevent theft _directly facilitated
by their network_ , and i'd say they’re right to do it.

------
vibrunazo
FYI this has absolutely nothing to do with TorrentFreak suddenly being anti-
piracy. The only thing he's mad about is that the pirates are spoiling the
game's story by publishing spoilers everywhere. It's not about the act of
piracy itself, just the spoilers.

From Enigmax in the comments:

"The issue of the "copying and distributing" of information isn't what i'm
complaining about, it's the idiots who want to ruin everyone else's enjoyment
of what would otherwise be a first class experience."

~~~
anonaccount27
Game plot spoilers is equally valid (as distributable information) as the bits
on the disc itself.

~~~
jonny_eh
There's a difference between making information available and making it
unavoidable.

------
jrockway
I'm surprised that torrentfreak would take this view. Perhaps Microsoft needs
better internal controls if they don't want their games to leak a month before
release? Once it's leaked, you can't really blame people for playing the game
and telling people about it. Information wants to be free, and all that.

What purpose does account suspension serve? People will just initiate a
chargeback for their membership fees and create a new account with a new
username. Or worse, switch to PS3 and forget all about Microsoft.

~~~
envex
If you've been banned your console is useless -- you can't make a new gold
account anymore.

~~~
AUmrysh
Your console is not useless. When you are permabanned they will mess up your
NAND and make your saves invalid, and you won't be able to connect to live
again without modifying the keyvault on your console (on ones where this is
possible). They used to just ban your console and not your account, so you
could keep your account and just go buy a new console, mod it, and be playing
again within a week (after the ban wave was over).

A friend of mine actually figured out how much he was paying for the console
every year, about $200-$300, and then figured out how many games he had
pirated (at what would be $60, roughly, a piece) and came to the conclusion
that it was worth pirating all of his Xbox 360 games and face being banned
every November. If you own 5 games that were purchased new, that's a console's
worth of money right there. We did that for a couple of years until they
started banning our accounts for the JTAG exploit.

Microsoft is unethical in what they do when they ban people on Live and
corrupt their NAND, but they've probably got legal powers to do that based on
the Live EULA.

~~~
justinhj
Funny that you switch gears and talk about ethics after basically saying it's
much cheaper to steal than to buy products and actually support the people
making your entertainment.

------
stephengillie
This article wants to be objecting to the mass-posting of Halo 4 spoilers, but
for some reason it's written with an almost anti-piracy angle. This confuses
me.

~~~
nchlswu
I see it written as against the pirates who "give a bad name to pirates" so to
speak.

------
DannyBee
The real news here is that Halo 4 apparently has a story worth ruining?

~~~
jug6ernaut
The Halo series actually has a large and very immersing universe surrounding
its games. There is also a successful novels series follow/extending the Halo
Universe. The notion that Halo 4 might have a bad story should be more a shock
then it having a good story. Ofc this is all up to opinion, but the novel's
extensive success should speak for themselves.

~~~
blktiger
While I enjoy the novels, I think the story embedded in the game speaks for
itself. Check out the massive story page on the halo.bungie.org website, there
are pages and pages and pages of speculations from avid fans about this or
that in the story. <http://halostory.bungie.org/>

~~~
jug6ernaut
I agree 100%. I simply brought up the novels because they speak solely to the
stories success where there is a large portion of people who play the games
solely for the multiplayer without giving any attention to the campaign/story
aspect of the game. & as such it could be argued that just because the game is
success doesn't mean there is a good story. An example of this would be the
COD:MW series of games, which most ppl would say that story is horrible(i
actually simi enjoy them).

------
anonaccount27
So do they distinguish between pirated copies and honestly-bought copies, and
ban appropriately, or do they take the blanket approach of banning anyone
playing the game regardless?

~~~
mindstab
seeing as it's 3 weeks before launch I don't think there are _any_ honestly-
bought copies which means its blanket ban approach and it works perfectly.
Which is why it's hilarious

~~~
anonaccount27
I've seen several pictures of opened copies (could be fake, sure), and Halo 2
was shipped to retailers several weeks before release (but that was a long
time ago and their policies may have changed in that regard) and had a similar
problem to this.

IIRC they banned people who tried to play on Live, but not people who were
signed in but playing singleplayer. At least, that seemed to be the policy.

------
tekknik
Why is this news? They've had this policy since Halo 2. The only reason Halo 1
didn't have it was because it wasn't a live game.

~~~
DanBC
Hello,

Welcome to HN!

(apologies in advance for the patronising tone. I really need help and advice
about tone in written communication. Sorry.)

In general it's a bad idea to say "Why is this news" because that adds little
to the conversation. You will attract down votes for comments like that.

In general it's considered poor form to say that an item doesn't belong on HN.
Alternatives are to use the voting system; use the flag system; or just ignore
the bad content. You don't have access to down votes yet, and top level items
don't have down vote buttons anyway, but you do have up vote rights. It's
great when many people visit [new] and up vote good content.

This is a shame because you probably have a good point.

From the Welcome page:

> _A crap link is one that's only superficially interesting. Stories on HN
> don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested
> in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting._

> _What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about
> the world. A story about a robbery, for example, would probably not be
> deeply interesting. But if this robbery was a sign of some bigger,
> underlying trend, then perhaps it could be._

> _The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but
> shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or
> videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto
> a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to
> be quieter._

------
Crake
With consoles linked to the home company so strongly these days, it's
relatively unsurprising that Microsoft would do something like this. I mean,
it's not like you don't know that your console's connected to them, right?

