Banning the Sale of Minecraft Accounts

[Lotus]

Hey all,

Recently, MCM made a good step in the right direction by enforcing strict policies against resource leakers and those affiliated. However, in the eyes of many, it was a half-baked effort knowing that this site thrives on the Minecraft TOS violating sales of accounts (and the other range of TOS violating services this website facilitates). I wish to see the removal of accounts as a step towards making this marketplace a platform that actually cares about ethics.

Why would we want to ban the sale of accounts?

1. Legitimize the marketplace. The site hypocritically enforces Rule 5.4 by striking down those who violate product ownership rights heavily, yet turns a blind eye to the sale of Minecraft Accounts which violates Mojang’s TOS. Choose one or the other. Remove 5.4 and commit to being a black market, or equally enforce your own rules across all sections of the forum. Being inconsistent and half-assed only annoys the community even more.
   
   
2. Get rid of our most toxic and notorious members. The accounts market is saturated, comprising of crackers stealing accounts, returning ban evaders and is also the section holding the most linked scam reports often closing due to inconclusive evidence.
   
   
3. The site no longer needs to allocate resources to develop features and moderate the section. "Opportunity cost"
   
   
4. MC-Market will not die. By considering points 1 and 3, MCM can become an even better place for everyone and expand into even more markets. There are far more and far better opportunities out there.

Fun reads :

• https://www.mc-market.org/threads/81435/ (60% agreed)
• https://www.mc-market.org/threads/85005/ Announcement in the past for the removal of accounts.

The site doesn’t need to be plagued by accounts anymore. This site has a bigger future for itself by legitimizing itself into a community that leads others. Honestly, I shouldn't even need to be trying to convince everyone by explaining all the benefits of removing the section. This should not have been even allowed on this site in the first place.

 

[Grapefruit]

You specifically picked out the word "reproduction" from that definition despite knowing full well that nobody believes selling an MC account is reproducing it, nor was that what I was referring to. The definition also said "using" without authorization.

I avoided "using" because it's vague as hell and it really doesn't work either.

You’re also the one attempting to bend Mojang’s EULA to try and cover plugins.

No, I'm not you just can't process the damn quotes that you provided. It states what I said in your quotes, I'm not bending anything.

In order for your claims of the EULA’s coverage of plugins to hold any weight, the license would need to be copy-left like the GPL. This is not a copy-left license agreement so the restrictions only apply to the copyright code contained in your project. As Mojang almost certainly intended.

As I previously mentioned, you cannot read. The quotes themselves state that you cannot use any plugins, tools, or modifications you make, even if it contains little to no Mojang code, for monetary gain.

I have every intention of being consistent with our enforcement regardless of the product in question. Trying to make doing so more difficult won’t change my mind.

So you're willing to kill the site if it means being consistent?

I did, however, email Mojang a few days ago just to ensure my understanding of their intent behind their EULA’s language was correct. No response yet.

Good luck with that, I filled out a report over a year ago because an old alt of mine that I wanted to use got locked for no reason, and I still haven't got a response.

If you don’t like Google’s definition, how about https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy
Or the Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
It’s piracy, please accept that.

Those are both claiming it is copyright infringement, which selling a Minecraft account (which is, obviously, prohibited by Mojang's TOS) is not because Mojang's TOS isn't copyrighted, it's simply just TOS violation which isn't illegal.

 

[Doge]

If you don’t like Google’s definition, how about https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy
Or the Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
It’s piracy, please accept that.

If it's piracy, then why am I unable to find a case of the DMCA being used for account resale anywhere?

I can give an example too:

I create software that sets your social media accounts to have whatever stats you want.
I offer you a license to use this software along with an account to access it, under the condition that you not share the account with anyone else. You use it, get your satisfaction out of it, then sell access to the account to other people despite agreeing not to, and make the majority of your money back. Now they are receiving the service, getting satisfaction from it, despite not paying the creator for it. Then they sell access to the account to someone else, and the process continues.
That’s called unlimited redistribution.
Is this somehow better from unlimited copies?

Minecraft accounts are just a way of accessing a game you purchased. You can enjoy the game, yes, get bored and then sell it. You can do this with physical games, but why not digital? I know, because if they're digital, more control can be exerted over you. Do you also think it's wrong to sell physical games because you can get enjoyment from them and then get most your money back by reselling them?

Whether it’s software that’s been redistributed without right, or access to the software that’s being redistributed without right, you’re causing the creator, the owner of the software to lose money. The people who might have purchased it legitimately from them instead purchased it from you (probably) for slightly cheaper. It’s stealing sales from the rightful owner of the product.

And going to GameStop, buying a game, playing it and reselling for less also will cause the company to lose money. Does this belief of yours only apply to digital items? Or are you also against this as well? I personally believe that these game companies have no right to prevent you from reselling their digital games/accounts which are used to access them (basically the same thing), just because they are able to take them away easily.

The two subjects are subjects I happen to have developed firm beliefs on, and thus fight for, even against opposition.
It’s not intended to be condescending. I simply believe in what I’m saying, so there’s no reason for me to waver. However, I can assure you that I’m not smug. There’s nothing enjoyable about having to defend your position against a majority. Especially when you know that you’ll be resented for it.

I see. Thanks for clarifying.

Again, it’s still piracy. It’s still theft. It’s still something you don’t have the right to redistribute, so our rules against redistributing without right still cover it, and we should still be enforcing it consistently.
Vape was allowed because Minecraft accounts set a precedent, and it should also be stopped.
MC-Market should always forbid the sale/redistribution of content that we know the seller doesn’t have the right to be redistributing.

It's not piracy, it's ToS violation. Piracy is illegal, if this really was "piracy" - people would be prosecuted for it. And how many people have been exactly? Do you see governments enforcing the ToS of companies (parts that are NOT enforced by law) and referring to breaking them as "piracy"?

Interesting indeed.

However, an unsettled French court case with Valve isn’t a justification for ignoring the EULA of the services you use which impose similar restrictions on redistribution. If anyone believes Mojang’s EULA violates European consumer laws, that needs to be decided in court before those beliefs can be acted upon. It certainly isn’t something MC-Market can use as justification for allowing their sale.

I'm not saying it should be used as justification (currently), but rather to point out that views on what "rights" game companies have is changing. Being digital rather than physical shouldn't prevent buyers of games to resell them later on. Me posting this last bit wasn't meant to be an argument, but rather an interesting look into how things could change.

 

[Violet]

Here is what need to happen. Mick you need to respond to this fucking shit. Having justis and doge go back and forth won’t do anything. Cause justis is hard stuck and no one will change his opinions, cause he is always right and the best :rofl:

 

[Grapefruit]

Here is what need to happen. Mick you need to respond to this fucking shit. Having justis and doge go back and forth won’t do anything. Cause justis is hard stuck and no one will change his opinions, cause he is always right and the best :rofl:

Oh yes, praise lord Justis he knows best in every single situation!! He says accounts should be removed? Well, then we remove accounts!

 

[Doge]

Here is what need to happen. Mick you need to respond to this fucking shit. Having justis and doge go back and forth won’t do anything. Cause justis is hard stuck and no one will change his opinions, cause he is always right and the best :rofl:

Mick has looked at this I believe. I too was super interested in seeing his stance, so I went through his latest posts and saw this:

Here is the post in question:

If we're gonna remove selling minecraft accounts, then you'll also need to remove the social media accounts section since those would also violate the ToS for the sites they're associated with.

Also while we're at it, we should probably get rid of the gift code & licences section since reselling them is usually against the ToS as well. For example, for amazon giftcards it states this in their ToS: "Gift Cards cannot be reloaded, resold, transferred for value or redeemed for cash, except to the extent required by law."

And also we should get rid of the loan / investment section entirely then since usually PayPal is used for loaning the money, which is against their ToS as well.

This can be interpreted in multiple ways of course, but personally the vibe I'm getting is that he thinks it would set a bad precedent, resulting in excessive policing on items being sold on this forum. But obviously the only way to truly know what he means by it is to ask him.

 

[OnyxianSoul]

I don't know if selling account is legal or not, regardless of the company's TOS, but it's definitely shady.
That being said, I disagree that it's moraly wrong. You payed for it, just as any other good, the fact that you used it doesn't usually mean you can't sell something and I don't beleive that it should.
Anyhow, regardless of that, I believe banning MC account sales will probably have a huge initial impact on the userbase on MCMarket, but it could eventually become a good thing, with a tendency to get more honest users here.

Whatever you decide, I think its certainly positive that you spent the time considering it.

Good luck.

 

[Justis]

As I previously mentioned, you cannot read. The quotes themselves state that you cannot use any plugins, tools, or modifications you make, even if it contains little to no Mojang code, for monetary gain.

I believe you meant "sell" not use, but listen to what you’re effectively saying: "You cannot use any tools you make even if it contains no Mojang code"
How does that make any sense? I make a tool not using any Mojang code, and I’m not allowed to sell it?
You’re taking the word "plugins" to refer to bukkit plugins, and spigot plugins, and the like, simply because that’s the only thing you’ve ever known "plugins" to refer to in this niche, but I’ve already explained that Mojang’s EULA is not copy-left, so it only applies to projects containing their copyright code. If you want to dispute that claim, then you’ll need to prove their license agreement is copy-left.

So you're willing to kill the site if it means being consistent?

I want this site to be the best platform for entrepreneurs and content creator just starting out, especially in the MC niche.
If all of the people who only sell content that they don’t have the right to sell (MC accounts, etc) leave, then that will not impede that goal in the least. Nor do I believe that it will kill MC-Market.

Those are both claiming it is copyright infringement, which selling a Minecraft account (which is, obviously, prohibited by Mojang's TOS) is not because Mojang's TOS isn't copyrighted, it's simply just TOS violation which isn't illegal.

Copyright infringement (colloquially referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright law without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works

Minecraft is copyright content. You are clearly displaying the protected work without right by distributing access to the game to someone else.
Webster also uses the word "especially" not "only", in reference to copyright violations.

If it's piracy, then why am I unable to find a case of the DMCA being used for account resale anywhere?

Because the copyright content isn’t being hosted, so there’s nothing to DMCA take down. However, as shown by the definitions, redistributing isn’t the only way to violate copyright law, so expecting a DMCA takedown to be the proper response to all acts of piracy would be incorrect.

What is considered piracy is best determined in court. Court cases are expensive and time consuming, so companies which can resolve the infringement by cancelling an account will likely always prefer that over a case. As you pointed out, software access being made available through an account enables companies to protect themselves this way much more easily.

Minecraft accounts are just a way of accessing a game you purchased. You can enjoy the game, yes, get bored and then sell it. You can do this with physical games, but why not digital? I know, because if they're digital, more control can be exerted over you. Do you also think it's wrong to sell physical games because you can get enjoyment from them and then get most your money back by reselling them?

If the sellers of physical games could prevent it, I’m sure they would. GameStop is dying because everyone’s going digital. It enables much better protection for copyright owners.
Going back to my social media stat setting example.
If I’ve got 10 customers interested in my product, I can sell my product 10 times. Once for each person receiving my service.
However, if the first person I sell it to uses it, then gives access to the next person, and so on until all 10 of them have used my service, then I’ve made only one sale, despite providing my service to 10 people.

I understand you don’t see this as a problem, and I understand you believe people should be able to sell access to something that they’ve purchased access to, however, that battle is best fought in legislation if you believe that you are right.

And going to GameStop, buying a game, playing it and reselling for less also will cause the company to lose money. Does this belief of yours only apply to digital items? Or are you also against this as well? I personally believe that these game companies have no right to prevent you from reselling their digital games/accounts which are used to access them (basically the same thing), just because they are able to take them away easily.

My belief is that MC-Market should not allow people to redistribute things which they don’t have the right to redistribute.
It has nothing to do with what policies I believe companies should implement, what they should allow or disallow.

It's not piracy, it's ToS violation. Piracy is illegal, if this really was "piracy" - people would be prosecuted for it. And how many people have been exactly? Do you see governments enforcing the ToS of companies (parts that are NOT enforced by law) and referring to breaking them as "piracy"?

Not everything that’s in a TOS or EULA is piracy if violated. However, I believe I’ve sufficiently demonstrated that distributing access to software without right is piracy. Even if you are correct, and redistributing access to software without right is not piracy, it’s still illegal. The EULA is a contract that you form with Mojang when you use their service. Violating a contract you’ve agreed to falls under contract law and it can be taken to court.

However, whether or not anyone’s taken to court is irrelevant.
We shouldn’t even still be debating whether it’s piracy or not. That’s also irrelevant.

All that’s relevant is that you are distributing something without right.

I’d like to clarify that the position that I’ve been arguing is my own personal position. The opinions I’m expressing in this suggestion thread are my own and do not necessarily align with those of Mick or any other member of our staff team.
Everyone debating here is doing so because they’re passionate about this platform and want the best for it. What we believe the best to be will always differ, but I hope we can all respect and attempt to understand each other’s position with that in mind.

 

[Grapefruit]

I believe you meant "sell" not use

I was trying to say "you can't use it for monetary gain" but you're right, I definitely could've worded that better.

I believe you meant "sell" not use, but listen to what you’re effectively saying: "You cannot use any tools you make even if it contains no Mojang code"
How does that make any sense? I make a tool not using any Mojang code, and I’m not allowed to sell it?

I don't know, I'm just quoting what you took directly from Mojang's TOS. (see below for the pictures that come from your quote)

You’re taking the word "plugins" to refer to bukkit plugins, and spigot plugins, and the like, simply because that’s the only thing you’ve ever known "plugins" to refer to in this niche, but I’ve already explained that Mojang’s EULA is not copy-left, so it only applies to projects containing their copyright code. If you want to dispute that claim, then you’ll need to prove their license agreement is copy-left.

Just the word plugins is very vague so plugins could easily mean bukkit plugins as well as spigot plugins as well as any other type of plugin. If you read what you quoted, you'd see that:
https://gyazo.com/0ede1a623a0bf649d28c24c1bb0bcfb6 and https://gyazo.com/11705306c703ba9357e63c31520488bd.

I want this site to be the best platform for entrepreneurs and content creator just starting out, especially in the MC niche.
If all of the people who only sell content that they don’t have the right to sell (MC accounts, etc) leave, then that will not impede that goal in the least. Nor do I believe that it will kill MC-Market.

You would be getting rid of a huge portion of the community, if you truly want to be consistent, which would leave behind very few people and chances are those people would move on to another site and you'd be left with very few.

Because the copyright content isn’t being hosted, so there’s nothing to DMCA take down. However, as shown by the definitions, redistributing isn’t the only way to violate copyright law, so expecting a DMCA takedown to be the proper response to all acts of piracy would be incorrect.

Yes, it is being hosted. It's being hosted on MCM and any other site that allows the sale of Minecraft accounts.

 

[Niteburn]

If you remove mc account selling for TOS violations, then you will have to take 90% of the market down with it. It would obviously kill the website since it's already a shitty community.

It's like if there's shit (community) in a toilet, if you remove the toilet (toilet being accounts/other stuff) that is holding the shit, then the shit will get everywhere and everyone will never enter or use the bathroom (website).

Amazing Analogy ^^

 

[Mick]

My reasoning for not posting a response until now has been that I saw this suggestion as an opportunity to see which way the community opinion would go, and I am moderately surprised by the response that there has been. It's clear that my lack of a response has been noticed by some members so I figure that now's probably a good time for me to give my thoughts on this suggestion and the overall direction the site is going to take in the future.

To summarise my thoughts about everything in this thread down to a single sentence, my opinion is that MC-Market is currently not in a position that we can justify such massive changes to the services and platform that we provide to our users.

I strongly believe that removing minecraft account sales would not kill the community just like how it didn't last time we removed them. As much as account sellers like to think it, minecraft accounts do not make up 60% of minecraft-related sales on the website and instead they are only a little bit bigger than our other sections such as servers, builds, and plugins. However, as many users have brought up, implementing a policy to stop unethical trading on our platform reaches much further than just minecraft accounts and will mean that many other forums need to be further restricted or removed entirely.

It still seems unclear as to whether the community feels more strongly for the removal of minecraft account sales or for them to remain. Although the first post has 42% of users agreeing with the change and 58% disagreeing at the moment, Justis' post directly below that has 65% agreeing and 35% disagreeing. I am not sure the exact reasoning of this, but from my perspective it seems that people have been reading the title and instantly disagreeing with the main post before reading the justification and the people that read on are able to recognise the benefits of the change.

This is an incredibly difficult decision to make, I must balance the ethical considerations and community opinions while still wanting MC-Market to succeed from a business perspective. Behind the scenes the removal of minecraft accounts and other TOS-breaking services on our site has been debated extensively. It is not a decision that I take lightly and I would like to receive more feedback on the significant change to our platform that changes like this would bring.

 

[nfdegreu3i23r22r]

My reasoning for not posting a response until now has been that I saw this suggestion as an opportunity to see which way the community opinion would go, and I am moderately surprised by the response that there has been. It's clear that my lack of a response has been noticed by some members so I figure that now's probably a good time for me to give my thoughts on this suggestion and the overall direction the site is going to take in the future.

To summarise my thoughts about everything in this thread down to a single sentence, my opinion is that MC-Market is currently not in a position that we can justify such massive changes to the services and platform that we provide to our users.

I strongly believe that removing minecraft account sales would not kill the community just like how it didn't last time we removed them. As much as account sellers like to think it, minecraft accounts do not make up 60% of minecraft-related sales on the website and instead they are only a little bit bigger than our other sections such as servers, builds, and plugins. However, as many users have brought up, implementing a policy to stop unethical trading on our platform reaches much further than just minecraft accounts and will mean that many other forums need to be further restricted or removed entirely.

It still seems unclear as to whether the community feels more strongly for the removal of minecraft account sales or for them to remain. Although the first post has 42% of users agreeing with the change and 58% disagreeing at the moment, Justis' post directly below that has 65% agreeing and 35% disagreeing. I am not sure the exact reasoning of this, but from my perspective it seems that people have been reading the title and instantly disagreeing with the main post before reading the justification and the people that read on are able to recognise the benefits of the change.

This is an incredibly difficult decision to make, I must balance the ethical considerations and community opinions while still wanting MC-Market to succeed from a business perspective. Behind the scenes the removal of minecraft accounts and other TOS-breaking services on our site has been debated extensively. It is not a decision that I take lightly and I would like to receive more feedback on the significant change to our platform that changes like this would bring.

My feedback is if you implement this I'm leaving the site

 

[dxn]

My reasoning for not posting a response until now has been that I saw this suggestion as an opportunity to see which way the community opinion would go, and I am moderately surprised by the response that there has been. It's clear that my lack of a response has been noticed by some members so I figure that now's probably a good time for me to give my thoughts on this suggestion and the overall direction the site is going to take in the future.

To summarise my thoughts about everything in this thread down to a single sentence, my opinion is that MC-Market is currently not in a position that we can justify such massive changes to the services and platform that we provide to our users.

I strongly believe that removing minecraft account sales would not kill the community just like how it didn't last time we removed them. As much as account sellers like to think it, minecraft accounts do not make up 60% of minecraft-related sales on the website and instead they are only a little bit bigger than our other sections such as servers, builds, and plugins. However, as many users have brought up, implementing a policy to stop unethical trading on our platform reaches much further than just minecraft accounts and will mean that many other forums need to be further restricted or removed entirely.

It still seems unclear as to whether the community feels more strongly for the removal of minecraft account sales or for them to remain. Although the first post has 42% of users agreeing with the change and 58% disagreeing at the moment, Justis' post directly below that has 65% agreeing and 35% disagreeing. I am not sure the exact reasoning of this, but from my perspective it seems that people have been reading the title and instantly disagreeing with the main post before reading the justification and the people that read on are able to recognise the benefits of the change.

This is an incredibly difficult decision to make, I must balance the ethical considerations and community opinions while still wanting MC-Market to succeed from a business perspective. Behind the scenes the removal of minecraft accounts and other TOS-breaking services on our site has been debated extensively. It is not a decision that I take lightly and I would like to receive more feedback on the significant change to our platform that changes like this would bring.

If you remove the accounts section, then you'll be contradicting yourself as (I'm pretty certian) you purchased your underscore accounts (5 _s and 15 _s on Minecraft, 15 _s on Twitter).

 

[fruitymc]

This is an incredibly difficult decision to make, I must balance the ethical considerations and community opinions while still wanting MC-Market to succeed from a business perspective. Behind the scenes the removal of minecraft accounts and other TOS-breaking services on our site has been debated extensively. It is not a decision that I take lightly and I would like to receive more feedback on the significant change to our platform that changes like this would bring.

The point that was made in the original post was to be consistent. Please stay consistent no matter what decision is made. Remove everything that violates ToS, or remove none.

 

[jxhdvn]

"The people who are only here to sell accounts will go somewhere else"
As expected. If we allowed ewhoring, and there were people here only for that, even if they made up a large portion of the community, I’d still insist on removing it. If they need a place to do that, I’m very happy for it to be someplace else.
However, few account sellers only sell accounts, and there’s so much more to our community than that. MC-Market has the community and the resources to pull itself out of the blackhat pit we’ve got our foot stuck in and continue to grow and reach more entrepreneurs and content creators.

There are hundreds of people on here that bought premium JUST to sell minecraft accounts, the fact that you said few account sellers is funny. This entire suggestion is just messed up for reasons already stated to you on the thread

 

[Terminated]

You’re strawmanning.

Again:


Everything I’ve suggested is to make our enforcement consistent with how MC-Market enforces the rights of our community’s creators.
If someone is selling or distributing something they don’t own or otherwise have the right to redistribute, then they need to be issued a warning, and the content removed.
If someone is doing something which violates the TOS of a service they’re using, and for they are, for whatever reason, unable to resolve it between themselves, then a scam report or a support request can be opened to acquire our support.

I am not suggesting special treatment for Mojang, or PayPal, or anyone else. I’m suggesting that they receive the same treatment that we provide our community.

I am not strawmanning, you said these two things:

it’s the buying and selling of things without right on our platform which we are not currently enforcing

Violating someone’s terms of service is something to be reported to us by the product/service owner

THEY CONTRADICT EACH OTHER

As I said before, which was ignored, selling accounts may be against mojangs TOS but it it their job to enforce this as i said. Your direct argument was about these two things apparently having a difference. They don't have a difference. Again: 1 rule for mojang another rule for everyone else. If mc accounts are removed then all people only using f&f payments should be to as well as currency conversion, loans and everything else discussed.

Something else that is stupid in what has been said is a push to call it "black hat". It is against a TOS which the company needs to enforce. Not illegal.

 

[Justis]

I am not strawmanning, you said these two things:





THEY CONTRADICT EACH OTHER

As I said before, which was ignored, selling accounts may be against mojangs TOS but it it their job to enforce this as i said. Your direct argument was about these two things apparently having a difference. They don't have a difference. Again: 1 rule for mojang another rule for everyone else. If mc accounts are removed then all people only using f&f payments should be to as well as currency conversion, loans and everything else discussed.

Something else that is stupid in what has been said is a push to call it "black hat". It is against a TOS which the company needs to enforce. Not illegal.

They don’t contradict each other.
The former has an enforcement that we provide to all of our community members without the need for a report.
The latter is much more vague and requires a report. Moreover. You don’t need a TOS to state "You’re not allowed to redistribute this" in order for that work not to be allowed to be redistributed.
Any proprietary content, with or without a TOS is not allowed to be redistributed or resold on our platform unless you’ve been granted the right to do so.

Again:

Again, it’s the buying and selling of things without right on our platform which we are not currently enforcing consistently.
Violating someone’s terms of service is something to be reported to us by the product/service owner if they need assistance with a particular violator. That’s how it’s always been for every service on our platform.

Everything I’ve suggested is to make our enforcement consistent with how MC-Market enforces the rights of our community’s creators.
If someone is selling or distributing something they don’t own or otherwise have the right to redistribute, then they need to be issued a warning, and the content removed.
If someone is doing something which violates the TOS of a service they’re using, and for they are, for whatever reason, unable to resolve it between themselves, then a scam report or a support request can be opened to acquire our support.

I am not suggesting special treatment for Mojang, or PayPal, or anyone else. I’m suggesting that they receive the same treatment that we provide our community.

If your accusations held any weight, then MCM wouldn’t punish anyone when our users sell or leak plugins, maps, art, etc. without right unless a report was made. Someone leaks MCMMO on MCM? You want us to leave it up and not issue a warning unless the owner gets on and reports it?

That’s a rhetorical question.

I am not suggesting special treatment for Mojang, or PayPal, or anyone else. I’m suggesting that they receive the same treatment that we provide our community.

 

[Terminated]

My reasoning for not posting a response until now has been that I saw this suggestion as an opportunity to see which way the community opinion would go, and I am moderately surprised by the response that there has been. It's clear that my lack of a response has been noticed by some members so I figure that now's probably a good time for me to give my thoughts on this suggestion and the overall direction the site is going to take in the future.

To summarise my thoughts about everything in this thread down to a single sentence, my opinion is that MC-Market is currently not in a position that we can justify such massive changes to the services and platform that we provide to our users.

I strongly believe that removing minecraft account sales would not kill the community just like how it didn't last time we removed them. As much as account sellers like to think it, minecraft accounts do not make up 60% of minecraft-related sales on the website and instead they are only a little bit bigger than our other sections such as servers, builds, and plugins. However, as many users have brought up, implementing a policy to stop unethical trading on our platform reaches much further than just minecraft accounts and will mean that many other forums need to be further restricted or removed entirely.

It still seems unclear as to whether the community feels more strongly for the removal of minecraft account sales or for them to remain. Although the first post has 42% of users agreeing with the change and 58% disagreeing at the moment, Justis' post directly below that has 65% agreeing and 35% disagreeing. I am not sure the exact reasoning of this, but from my perspective it seems that people have been reading the title and instantly disagreeing with the main post before reading the justification and the people that read on are able to recognise the benefits of the change.

This is an incredibly difficult decision to make, I must balance the ethical considerations and community opinions while still wanting MC-Market to succeed from a business perspective. Behind the scenes the removal of minecraft accounts and other TOS-breaking services on our site has been debated extensively. It is not a decision that I take lightly and I would like to receive more feedback on the significant change to our platform that changes like this would bring.

I think the reasoning behind the disagree agree ratio on the top post vs Justis' one is due to the fact that Justis 's reply was watered down, manipulative, wrong on a few accounts mentioned by users like Doge and attempting to bend the words of TOS agreements on a number of levels as discovered prior to this.

The other reason may well be because... He is a staff member. In general the agree disagree ratio on either of the two posts are lacking massively in any kind of validity. There is no measure of how long each person was given to think about their choice, how far they read down, how far the discussion had got when they reacted, whether they changed their reaction after checking days later. Even down to who posted the suggestion. It's very flawed in general as a system.

That said, we can't really devise a completely new system at this moment for suggestions especially as big as this.

They don’t contradict each other.
The former has an enforcement that we provide to all of our community members without the need for a report.
The latter is much more vague and requires a report. Moreover. You don’t need a TOS to state "You’re not allowed to redistribute this" in order for that work not to be allowed to be redistributed.
Any proprietary content, with or without a TOS is not allowed to be redistributed or resold on our platform unless you’ve been granted the right to do so.



If your accusations held any weight, then MCM wouldn’t punish anyone when our users sell or leak plugins, maps, art, etc. without right unless a report was made. Someone leaks MCMMO on MCM? You want us to leave it up and not issue a warning unless the owner gets on and reports it?

That’s a rhetorical question.

The whole point is that it isn't your job to protect billion dollar companies while it is your job to protect people in the community that you are meant to be invested in running to the best of your ability.

 

[Khafra]

This is an incredibly difficult decision to make, I must balance the ethical considerations and community opinions while still wanting MC-Market to succeed from a business perspective. Behind the scenes the removal of minecraft accounts and other TOS-breaking services on our site has been debated extensively. It is not a decision that I take lightly and I would like to receive more feedback on the significant change to our platform that changes like this would bring.

"Ethical considerations" lol.

There's nothing to debate here: you provide a legitimate site where deals can take place. If you take that away, more users will be scammed on your site by people leaving and you lose out on business.

 

[hikaria]

so basically they're killing the forums
nice

 

[Venture]

:facepalm:
1) Account Selling Section is one of the most active sections if not THE MOST active section.
2) You don't see devs, gfx designers, etc. offering their services for $500 - But the market is good money for many users as a single account can go for that or more.
3) Remove the account selling section, then people leave. What happens when people leave? Less sales to people who do GFX, which means what? They leave too.
4) You want to use money and invest in the resource section. So you take a section that makes users tens of thousands, that actually makes people money and provides an activity to the site and put money and resources into a section that makes people maybe $100 if lucky and isn't the reason of why people join the site.
5) Scam Reports? There are more scam reports for other sections than accounts.
6) Breaking EULA - AFAIK when Mojang tried to mess with Verringer during his ownership, Mojang couldn't find a legal way to take it down, so it's not any negative to the site.


If you want to show that you guys are bigger idiots than people thought you were, go for it.