January 17, 2008Lawyer Speaks Out on Xbox LIVE Lawsuit
Posted by The Ori
When three Texas gamers couldn’t get online to play “Call of Duty 4″ or “Halo 3″ on their Xbox 360s last December, they decided to sue (Oh what a damn shame!!!). In a class-action lawsuit filed January 4, gamers Keith Kay, Orlando Perez and Shannon Smith claim that they and millions of other Xbox Live users suffered damages in excess of $5 million. So, these three KIDS (well, their parents, lets face it) are filing lawsuit on behalf of all these other MILLIONS of people?
In his first interview with the press, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jason Gibson, explained the gamers’ side of things to MTV News. These are not guys looking to get rich,” Gibson said in a telephone interview from Houston Tuesday. “They are in their late 20s and 30s (late 30s even makes it worse!). They are college-educated (really…). These are not young kids who just turned 18 and [want] to sue for the fun of it. This is, to them, a real issue.” A real issue? How about going outside once and a while.
“When you have one person who is mad and they can’t get a response, and they can’t get their complaints addressed by a company like Microsoft, the only way to get their attention is in numbers,” Gibson said. He said the company had to have known what was going to happen with the Xbox Live overload. “If they had not anticipated the sales, then they would not have put out that many units of the Xbox to begin with.” Last week, Microsoft announced that Live had reached 10 million subscribers and claimed record-setting revenue for consoles sold in 2007, covering strong sales through the holiday season. Gibson said that proves Microsoft’s priorities were out of order.
“They take the money for the subscriptions, but they don’t make sure that the service is going to be there,” Gibson said. “They kind of put the cart before the horse. To me, you make sure the service is going to be there. Make sure the product is going to be there. And then feel good about taking money for the service and the product.”
Dennis said Microsoft could not comment on the lawsuit because the company has yet to be served. Gibson is in the process of doing so, after which Microsoft will have 20 days to respond to the suit.
With Gibson proceeding and Xbox blogger Hryb gagged from updating gamers about Live’s status via his site and his Twitter (German for Hermaphrodite) feed, gamers will have a harder time figuring out just how well Live is working. When asked where gamers should go for status updates, Microsoft’s Dennis said, “We will be communicating with our customers through our normal channels, such as Xbox.com and other means.”
Well, now I have seen it all, ADULTS crying… This is disgusting! Grown men crying over not being able to play with each other on Live! This is a sad day in history for setting an example for your kids; sue when you’re unhappy. I’ll have more later, as I DO have to go and work…
If by some miracle they win the suit, that means the XBOX LIVE is going to cost more :(
if not, microsoft will probably say they lost and still make it cost more lol
that was a joke
Look at these idiots that sued for the Hot Coffee mod? This is all those dumb people got:
Detailed Store Receipt: Cash payment up to $35.00 (this is the MAX you can get).
General Credit Card Statement or Check: Cash payment up to $17.50
Disc/Purchase Details: Cash payment up to $10.00
No Disc/Purchase Details: Cash payment up to $5.00
Wow, big payout there huh, but guess whay? You know who got ALL the money? The theiving LAWYERS, that’s who! All that for a measly 5.00 to 35.00, for the people, and you need your receipt if you get the 35.00. I think that’s funny, all that work for a pulper’s daily wage… Serves them right, Lawyers are the real thieves in this country now days.
Not necessarily, but on-line buys at marketplace probably will.
THREE people suing for 5-million dollars, and that money MUST be distributed to ever person who has Xbox Live, that’s the way it works. SO everyone gets 1.65 (actual damages) back, or LESS in the end. I would give those three people 2.00 each if they’d just shut the hell up…
I hope they get NOTHING. A judge should really look at those 20-30 year old kids (yeah, I know), and say “Are you serious? Get the hell out of here with this crap; case dismissed. Oh, and here’s 1.65 each, go buy a cup of coffee..” Unfortunately (if that would happen), the LAWYERS would then turn into sniveling cry-babies, and begin their legal trickery, and get their thieving mentality in gear to get it heard. It’s a waste of the taxpayers money too don’t forget, the judges need paid to listen to this kind of garbage.
College educated late 20’s & 30’s??? Do they work?? Got a life? Get out and see if the sun is still shinning outside? Get out and see if there’s life outside the door? Get out and get laid? That’d take my mind off some stupid service not being available, hell with the gaming - rather get some.
yeah right, you can say what you want as everyone has their own hobbies. why do you criticize people if it has got nothing to do with you. i’m 27, playing xbox 360 most of the time play live, married for almost 5 years, got a REAL job that most people like you can’t get. So what If I play even i’m old or whatever. Just shut your yap yokle. they are twice more mature that you are.
I think the Idea is right, I mean if you were paying a subsribtion to a magizine and the magizine didn’t come, I think most people would be pissed
Maybe, if you could not get that specific issue back, since each magazine (basically) is one of a kind. However, XBL is basically the same every month… It isn’t like if you miss a week, you can’t get that unique week back. No, this is just some sissy-la-la way of trying to stick it to the man (corporation). M$ hasn’t even had time to figure out COMPLETELY, what they were going to do about the issues. SO,in the mean time these 20-30 year old teens sue them almost immediately. Worthless is what it all boils down to, 20-30 year old EDUCATED people no less, acting like little thumb-sucking babies. There is no reason for it, none at all, and THEY are all you hear about, no one else.
yeah but its such a small part of their subscription they missed, its what a few days? if you subscribed to a magazine for 3 years (39 issues) and one month didn’t come, yeah you’d be annoyed but surely you wouldn’t sue.
Honestly, though-any other company would just send that “missing” magazine, no questions asked. Microsoft would want you to re-subscribe, and you still wouldn’t get that “missing” issue.
They can sent you another 1.65 worth of time, because there is nothing UNIQUE about the SERVICE itself, so, they can simply give you your 1.65 of TIME back, and you would not even know. I know what you are saying, but, live service is not a unique day-to-day service, it is just access, period…
The company I work for had a problem earlier this week where a connection kept dropping remote users - it was v-z’s fault. For $7K a month for that internet line, maybe we should file a suit too right?
In all seriousness, is there a clause stated somewhere in the toa that states or says anything related to the status of xbox live??
i HOPE THEY WIN
normally i would not agree with this sort of thing but when they are banning innocent people on there crappy service i hope they get sued for bucks
Great, another person who wasn’t taught basic reading and comprehension skills in school; NEWS FLASH: They are not suing over the banning of any consoles, so please get the facts straight. This suit is for a OUTAGE OF LIVE SERVICE which is worth approximately ONE DOLLAR AND SIXTY-FIVE CENTS! This suit has nothing to do with the banning innocent people. I have had my Xbox since release year, no problems, and no bans.
I agree with the banning of consoles in that manner, and I also support the loss of downloaded content that you are supposed to OWN, that you can’t get back. Still, this is about some childish 20 to 30 year old MEN (jury is out on that one), who could not play on live for a few days. It’s petty, and plain old frivolous. Yet, there is a REAL problem with what you mentioned, but what? NO LAW SUIT? So, you have people suing over 1.65 -vs- banning which costs you 349.99 for a new console? Where’s the logic in that? Well, that’s what happens when 20-30 year olds sit in front of the electronic baby-sitter.
Another person who assumes without knowing the facts.I know that they are suing for live outage. I am fuming because i was banned by ms for a modded console, which is unture,
This is a rare problem, and if you DID NOT mod your console, in ANY WAY, then that sucks. However, modding includes LEDs, FANs, and so on. They are also detecting voltage variances, and all kinds of things. People are getting banned for putting their fans on high speed. That means the monitoring wire is still in and reading a high RPM all the time? Or, not in, ad reading a ZERO all the time. THAT is still modding the console under the EULA, and if you did it, well, that’s the price you pay for violating the EULA. YES, I KNOW IT IS STUPID, but that’s the contract… As soon as you open the console, you voilated it. If you umplugged the DVD Drive and turned on power, all kinds of things are causing bans.
If you didn’t TOUCH the thing, and got banned, then you have every right to complain. Other than that, as soon as you popped the case open, anything you do may be detected. They REALLY went all out this time…
You think thats bad? I bet they don’t play World Of Warcraft much.
No way will they win this lawsuit.
Fact is you pay month after month for a service. Now if that service doe not work the way it is supposed to MS does not refund you money so how else are we to send a message to them. By all means through legal channels. As far as the clients being 20 to 30 that does not mean they have no life , video games are a great way to blow off steam after a long hard day at school or work. Plus to suggest that because said clients game on XBL that does not mean they have no life . To suggest such just goes to show that your thought process is very limited or uneducated.
Ok cjhurd and anyone else standing up for these guys , you are only defending them because you must be in the same boat as them 20-30 years old and cant get laid when xbox live is down you dont know what to do. I am 23 and i noticed the crashing on Live and you know hat i did imagine this , i read a book. If you think honestly that a lawsuit will send MS a message your dumber than s#it do you have any idea how many lawsuits Ms is involved in per year , i dont but i know its a lot more than 1 and its never over something that costs 62 bucks a year or so , and 5 million for 3 people is ridiculous , and splitting it between all users is even more so , why not sue for a free years subscription , obviously other people arent getting mad enough to sue only 3 people out of 10 million that is not even an easy to calculate percentage its some fraction of a half percent , of users on xbox live. My guess is a judge will in fact laugh at this and throw it out , they have that ability and frivilous lawsuits are never taken seriously , i also predict that micosoft will add something now in the EULA to cover this and kick these boys consoles of the service and refund there subscription , just to avoid any other litigation. This will be setled out of court too by the way it will never go in front of judge Unless MS just does it to crush these idiots.
I dont understand how some people can be so stupid. Its a damn online gameing service, not life. if you cell phone goes ot for 2-3 days then i can posible understand having a fit. But hell its just a way to play a GAME online. What is the world coming to when 3 GROWN men can sue due to an outage of a online game. If anyone knows World of Warcraft, most of there servers go down randomly depending on load. No one sues them even know there are people that live by WoW and cant unplug more than 30 sec to go pee or somthing.
And those people are HARD CORE, yet they never utter a peep when the service goes down. Well, they may say a few exclamatory remarks in house, call up their friend and do the same; but I don’t see them dialing a lawyer’s phone number.
You know… the only crying I see is from you people here. You guys just feel like crap that some Texan douchebags actually did something with the Live problem instead of just staying home and complaining about it. It’s not about the $1.65, it’s about the principal. You guys are a bunch of hippies that all you know how to do is complain. Get some balls and stand for something at least once in your life, even if it means that people will hate you for it.
(What happened to posting hacks and not ongoing headlines about a bunch of douches who got the best out of Microsoft?)
We are NOT crying, but those 20-30 year old KIDS are for not being able to play on line for a few days; here like this I think “boo-hoo, sniff-sniff, eeee, ow, and I want my mommy…”
I could not sign in either a few days, so I just played th game, whoopee, big deal. No, that’s not the point, there are so many WORSE things going on, and those DOUCHE-BAGS (since that seems to be the favorite word on this subject, and balls), sue over 1.65 - yeah, one dollar and sixty five cents.
As far as posting HACKS, apparently you did not read any previous post here, so I suggest you go back to school and learn basic READING and COMPREHENSION skills, ok? Not my fault you fell asleep in school. You see, as I said before, there is a LINK at the TOP LEFT of this page that says “Xbox360 Hacks” you may want to try clicking on that? Maybe try the FORUMS? This is what is called the FRONT PAGE, where all news pertaining to XBOX360 is posted. If you want HACKS as a front page, go somewhere else. Even XBOX-SCENE’s front page contains the SAME stuff. So, go there and complain too.
The Ori
you need some education
sue microsoft
I am not the one who needs educated, I am educated to the point where TRUTH HURTS, that’s all. Sorry, I don’t LIE to people and make things up. I am the dealer of harsh reality. You also need one, because your lack of punctuation, and capitalization of words is void, so, look in the mirror next time you feel like you need to say that.
I should sue the beer companies for giving me a beer belly.
Xbox Live -Terms of Use and Privacy Statement
Last updated: November 2007
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/legal/
The Service is offered to you conditioned on your acceptance without modification of these terms, conditions, and notices contained herein. By selecting “ACCEPT” below, you are attaching your electronic signature to and agreeing to this contract. You understand that if you do not agree to this contract, you should select “DECLINE”, discontinue your registration and refrain from using Xbox LIVE.
Please note that this contract limits our liability and we do not provide warranties for the Service. The contract also limits your remedies. These terms are in Sections 15 and 16 and we urge you to read the terms carefully.
(Section 15 doesn’t really apply much so I won’t include it.)
16. WE MAKE NO WARRANTY
We provide the Service “as-is,” “with all faults” and “as available.” The Microsoft Parties give no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws that this contract cannot change. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, workmanlike effort and non-infringement.
Well look at that technically and TOA covered. And you all read, understood and accepted that when signing up for and using xbox live. So take that to the court judge and see what he says. Maybe that guy Jobs is right, people don’t read enough anymore.
The Service is offered to you conditioned on your acceptance without modification of these terms, conditions, and notices contained herein. By selecting “ACCEPT” below, you are attaching your electronic signature to and agreeing to this contract. You understand that if you do not agree to this contract, you should select “DECLINE”, discontinue your registration and refrain from using Xbox LIVE.
And they “modified” the agreement. Yep. They broke their own EULA. Or am I wrong? Cause they changed it, for sure.
Well in that case then, here’s the part I didn’t include before since I didn’t see it as part of the discussion, but since you bring it up, here it is - #15.
15. HOW WE MAY CHANGE THIS CONTRACT
If we change this contract, then we will tell you at least 30 days before the change is in force. We will tell you of the change by e-mail or online posting. We may also use other ways that we believe will reach you. If you do not agree to such changes, then you must cancel and stop using the Service before the changes are in force. If you do not stop using the Service, then your use of the Service will continue under the changed contract.
They; phone companies, ISP’s, and many others all have similar stuff where they’ll say that they can change the policy when they feel like it and they’ll either let you know or they’ll send you a small little pamphlet outlining the details and changes. They can’t actually break it, if it’s their right to do so - it’s their policy not yours, your just agreeing to it by using the service or item detailed in the EULA.
But did you or anyone else recieve notification that the policy changed or was? I don’t recall getting one…It says clearly that they will notify everyone when changes will be made. They didn’t. The update in December, I got a notification, but that’s not when the contract changed. The contract was changed sometime in November I believe, and no notice.
Tell us when they LAST changed the EULA? I believe it was sometime in 2007? You all REALLY need to read the EULA, they can do what they want, that’s it! Part 16 alone protects them from lawsuits for service outages, and what not, you AGREED, so too bad. People just AGREE without reading and this is what happens when their toes get stepped on a little (as they see it). Nope, they have no case, and they can modify the agreement anytime they want. YOU say you did not get notice, when it was changed in NOVEMBER of 2007, which means people should have gotten notifications in OCTOBER 2007. Well, I did, in fact, I got a FEW notices. they did their job, the fact that YOU did not get a notice is not their fault. You would think that after going through 12 consoles, you’d keep up with it…
on the reals, if you offer a service and cannot provide it, you SHOULD be sued! besides that $100 million to bill gates is chump change. 5 million to Mr. gates is like pennies.
to Mr. Ori you say no profane words & no flaming or you will be banned, but you flame the texans calling names like “gold diggers” and such forth and pointing out a little flaws with the world. yet you don’t accept this as a flaw. a multi billion dollar corp lets you pay for the service, takes the money and yet you can’t use the service, but this isn’t a problem? how would you FEEL if your internet company did the same? yes there are numerous problems with the world. this is one.
so when you are sitting in your cozy chair about ready to delete this comment and ban me, there are people that have to stand up for 12 hours straight to do some thankless job just to squeak by, and save a few pennies of hard earned money to buy thier kid a xbox with live. only to be rejected for something they paid for, is this indeed right?
Wow, you have a real problem with knowing what PROFANITY is, don’t you? Well, maybe I can say STUPID Texans now? Because I did not say “Gold Digging Texans” I just said GOLD DIGGERS. So, what you’re saying is, it is ok to call a woman that; “GOLD DIGGER”, because it is an established term with them for certain circumstances? So, just not TEXANS right? Even so, it is not a profanity, it is an ADJECTIVE, describing something. I do not swear or curse, which is a PROFANITY. It is not MY fault you do not know the difference, perhaps you should SUE YOUR SCHOOL for not teaching you properly.
READ THE TERMS OF AGREEMENT before you use stuff then, or shut up, plain and simple.
So according to you - the company I work for, should file a suit against vz for the outage we suffered for half a day earlier this week. $7,000 a month for that internet line? So we should go for it right?
No like most things in computers and electronics it’s a matter of will it break or will it die out or shut off or just croak. Yes there are devices that have a very good level of durability. Computers and Telecommunications can’t be considered one of those things. If a line goes down, your best bet is to have a backup or failover or redundant line so your business won’t suffer any downtime. Likewise it’s best to have two computers in case one dies when you need to work from home or do a report due the next day, of course if possible as not everyone can afford to have a luxury of having multiple PC’s at home. Regardless Microsoft controls and runs xbox live, they like Blizzard which runs battle.net which houses Warcraft, Diablo & Starcraft have outages aswell. Diablo and Starcraft users don’t pay to play online, Warcraft users do, however I’d bet there’s some similar clause in the EULA as far as that goes. There’s probably more companies that can be made an example of, in a similar model but I think I’ve made my point.
This is Bull S— 3 “20-30 year old men” are gonna get five million dollars because they and millions of others couldn’t play on live for 5 minutes? How can this be held up in a court of law? This only adds fuel to the fire countries when other countries call us americans “stupid” and “ignorant”. I hope the judge dimisses this case they second he or she hears this. I know i would even if i wasn’t a gamer. To the three “men” who are sueing: GET A LIFE. GO OUTSIDE. THERES MORE TO LIFE THEN XBOX 360 AND MOUNTAIN DEW! GROW UP AND MOVE ON.
…/rant
Personally I don’t think that this is “suffering”, but it’s not my place to say, just as it’s none of yours. If you don’t think you “suffered” don’t claim anything for the downtime. No one here can say what is suffering to another.
But like I said in a earlier post, when joining XBL you agreed to the EULA. This protects them from many things like this so I don’t think this lawsuit has merit in THAT regard.
It would have been better had M$ just given out some free service, or at least MS points for something of our choice. I don’t play the (IMO) crappy little arcade games, and I wouldn’t pay for them. I paid for XBL service and while I don’t feel that is grounds to sue, it is another time where I feel shafted by M$.
soundz like america to me :D
M$ wants to give us some compensation for down time and give us a Bull$hit Arcade crap, they can keep it, how about 1 year free of service to everyone or 100,000 points for everyone. That seems a fair deal.
Yeah, 1.65 - 49.99 or 100,000 points which - $1250.00 rounded up; yeah, that is just SO fair.
I would be pissed if these guys get that 5mil, what about the rest of us? I would want a refund on my xbl yearly membership.
Last I recall, the only entities to win court cases against Microsoft have been the European Union, some states I think, and some companies here or there. I somewhat doubt these people can defeat the beast that is Microsoft in court.
Microsoft has plenty of cash, no doubt has an all-star lineup of lawyers, could probably pay the judge off if needed it’s not like these people are picking on a company with limited resources. Microsoft became what it is today due in part to lying, cheating, stealing, and borrowing, and bullying others. I wouldn’t exactly give these people much of a fighting chance. Course that’s just my opinion.
i have a rapidshare account
rapidshare was down yestoday maybe i should sue them?
lol…pathetic
Wow i cant belive your thinking that they want to get rich they just want to bring it to the attention that the system is up to snuff to be able to handle the load. I mean its microsoft they just need to create a inviroment were the system can be used in the way it was advertised. If they get rich then good for them but they just wanted to bring attention to the public
would be nice to be some kind of imparital! kid!!!
Microsoft will eat this up like candy. it probably wont even make it to court.