>> So we’ve gotten some interesting conclusions over the past week regarding the new ‘waves’ of bans over supposedly modified consoles on xbox live.

As you’ve all seen, Microsoft has started unbanning consoles. I’ve seen alot of people who were banned this past weekend, and are still banned, no matter how much yelling they do to poor customer reps. Others, who have modified firmwares ranging from 5.x to 1.4, and have never made a phone call have miraculously become unbanned!

As always with Microsoft, there is no rhyme or reason to their actions. A couple interesting things we have found…

You CAN have your console banned for having a 12v fan mod. A very trusted user of www.360patches.com got told directly from MS reps that his fan was modded on his 360 and that it violates the TOA. Any modification of hardware does indeed violate the TOA, so legally they reserve the right to ban users from live for that reason. Petty yes, but justified. A fan mod would be reasonably easy to detect, as voltage metering is something standard in all bios for the past 10 or so years.

In regards to ‘bad game data’ or kreon rips, SS, dmi and pfi, it appears that the reason MS might be unbanning xbox360’s is because we’ve found evidence that strongly suggests ANY xbox360 can return bogus data. After some internal testing on a few older 360’s, it seems that once a lens is near the end of its life, it can respond with all sorts of data, or lack thereof. A len’s on the fritz was able to produce all sorts of odd angles that a new drive would not, aswell as tons of missing data throughout SS files (many chunks of data that read 00’s instead).

So, it appears that MS is backtracking somewhat on the ban’s, likely due to the reasons described above. Their infallible system has proven once again to not be perfect, and to attack innocent users. As always, we recommend that if you are a live user, to NOT modify your system, as you will eventually get banned.
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com

on the note of my modding, the only interest i have in the xbox360 firmware mod is it allows KK to run the shader exploit, i only care about the wii drive mods because selling the hardware to do it puts food on my plate (although the roof over my head is gone now). modding for piracy only destroys the devs, look at one of the biggest devs we have known that went bust in recent years… pirates look at yourself and say “fuck i caused thousands and thousands of people to loose their jobs” then hang yourself

Anyways M$ will lay the banhammer to all the stupid pirates and poor boys stealing games and marketplace points at a retail store ( get a job) im a adult buying games 2 games a monthand i build custom arcade cabinets!, but it hurted the industry thats why they increased to $60 damn you butthole pirates!!!

As for SizzlingWeasel

dumbass its not the console scratching games its YOU TURNING THE CONSOLE WHILE PLAYING AND THATS A FULL MORON!!! DONT TURN THE CONSOLE WHILE PLAYING THE DAMN MANUAL SAYS IT ALL!!!

Beautiful analogy

If MS says it’s not their problem your 60 euro games are ruined by their hardware, I think it’s fair those people make backups before their original discs are scratched.

If you just flash your XBOX360 to play pirated copies: sht the hell up, you don’t have anything to complain about!

Click here for a complete side-by-side comparison of Game Copy Software

By Bryce Casselman

When addressing the legality of copying any electronic form of intellectual property, there is always debate. Whether talking about music, movies or games, manufactures fight to protect their copyrights, individuals fight to protect their investments and the reality of illegal piracy makes finding a mutually beneficial solution nearly impossible.

Typically, the public looks to the Fair Use Act and the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 to define their rights. Though open to interpretation, in a nutshell, these Acts say that you may legally make a copy for personal backup purposes, if you were the one who bought (and still own) the original.

This backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic game, not for the purpose of acquiring financial gain.

The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 also states that copyright holders can’t sue the average user for making home copies of their music. But the studios’ lawyers say that the recording companies are not required to make available the technology to make backup copies. This means that manufacturers of electronic media will try to make their products as challenging as possible to copy.

For more information on the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, click here:
www.virtualrecordings.com

Really no ones jealous. If we all wanted to be skript kiddies it’s not that difficult to flash the firmware on a dvd drive. Some of us have more class than that, we choose to support developers that make good games. Don’t give the bs that you wanted to try before buying - it’s a common lie that pirates use. Thats what demos are for.

So once again those that got banned - GOOD, I hope you enjoy trying to find out how to fix your console. Ohhh thats right you’re skript kiddies and you’re waiting on the ‘geniuses’ to figure out how to bypass this. Looks like thsoe experts got you into a load of trouble so far. Oh btw keep using backups, Microsoft is tracking everything you are doing and could easily come after you with copyright infringement charges - it’s all logged and they have your credit card information from LIVE. You are not anonymous skript kiddies.

Let’s wait for the pirates to find a way outa this, at least they know their shit.

(if you are actually gay take no offense to that comment)