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.

 

[Choo]

It seems many users, including yourself, have the perception that "Minecraft" solely means account sales, and nothing else.

I'm unsure why this is, considering there are so many more sections oriented to Minecraft; we can still operate as a Minecraft forum if account sales are removed.

Let's quote Verringer here from back in 2014:


The primary focus wasn't account selling, nor was it even worth mentioning it seems. To me, it was more tacked on, as admittedly, it does have a large community and following.

You're forcing us to like other sections we show no interest in?

Keeping consistency in mind, This would remove the following sections of the forum: (please correct me if I made a mistake anywhere down the line or forgot to include a forum section.)

1. Established Servers (reasons mentioned above)
   
2. Selling plug-ins (against EULA)
3. Social media accounts (against their respectful ToS)
4. Video game items (against Epic Games' EULA)
5. Gift Codes & Licenses (against their respectful ToS)
6. Other Products (specifically discord self bots, against Discord's ToS)
7. Hosting (as previously mentioned, non registered companies)
8. Currency conversion (as previously mentioned, PayPal is used for these kind of services, which is against PayPal's ToS)

I am by no means a legal expert, but this is what I was able to find with minimal google-fu. I'm sure someone who's actually knowledgeable in the subject can point this out better.

Yup. Very hypocritical. Obviously theres hidden reasons for this suggestion. Theres no way the "mature" and "professional" staff here couldve missed this! Right? Wrong! They just want to get rid of our community because of a few bad apples

 

[Terminated]

I absolutely LOVE how all but 1 staff has completely IGNORED the fact that many of the other sections on mc-market would also need to be removed to keep the consistency that is wanted. Its laughable how they refute points where they feel they have the upper hand (even though they don't) and they ignore points that would ruin their whole argument.


ANSWER THE DAM QUESTION Harry Justis Lotus

Hypothetically if the account section is to be removed, by your own logic you should be okay with the following:

- Removal of the sale of all social media accounts/ all accounts in general for any website/program
- Removal of the gift codes and licenses section as this is also against relevant terms of services
- Removal of established servers, setups, plugins and many resources which violate TOS
- Removal of the video game items section as this is also against any sane companies TOS
- Removal of all loans due to PayPal being a primary method and it being heavily against their TOS as stated above
- Sale of other products such as but not limited to: Hacked clients, ghost clients, any Minecraft mods as well as any other products which violate a third party's TOS.
- Currency conversion on the basis that it could be considered money laundering
- Removal of most of the appraisals conversations including strict rules about what is allowed to be posted there because most of the things there currently have now been disallowed due to the removals above.
- Removal of most recruitment and staff threads due to the servers they are about being non EULA compliant.
- Removal of ANY thread where PayPal friends and family is the only payment that is taken and g&s with fees paid isn't
- Might as well remove middlemen at this point due to no trading happening at all after the above changes are made
- Scam reports could probably be removed now as nobody is getting scammed due to there being practically no trading sections
- Heck staff members could be cut in half!

Are you in agreement with this?

Looks quite empty don't you think?

 

[Harry]

Keep in mind, the OG market in entirety was not big at ALL in not any market, thus making it not worthy of mention, it kickstarted around 2015 for mc and for other platforms like 2013-2014

This may be true, but the Accounts section still existed back in 2014, at the time I quoted Verringer.

To say that this forum is 'for' account selling, and imply that this is the only thing Minecraft related is ridiculously in my opinion.

You're forcing us to like other sections we show no interest in?

Of course not - I'm unsure how you've got that from my response.

You may not use or be interested in these sections, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. As mentioned above, to say that we would no longer be a Minecraft forum if account sales were removed is ludicrous.

Terminated The MC accounts section solely prompts the violation of Mojang/Minecraft's EULA - that's all it does.

Whereas, for other sections such as social media accounts, someone websites allow those sales, so requesting the removal of the entire section is not a sound argument.

Same goes for plugins, setups etc. There's quite a lot of misinformation within this thread about what violates Mojang/Minecraft's EULA, so I believe Justis wanted to compile all he has on the matter and share it.

I'll leave that for him to answer, as he's the most qualified to do so.

 

[Terminated]

This may be true, but the Accounts section still existed back in 2014, at the time I quoted Verringer.

To say that this forum is 'for' account selling, and imply that this is the only thing Minecraft related is ridiculously in my opinion.


Of course not - I'm unsure how you've got that from my response.

You may not use or be interested in these sections, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. As mentioned above, to say that we would no longer be a Minecraft forum if account sales were removed is ludicrous.

Terminated The MC accounts section solely prompts the violation of Mojang/Minecraft's EULA - that's all it does.

Whereas, for other sections such as social media accounts, someone websites allow those sales, so requesting the removal of the entire section is not a sound argument.

Same goes for plugins, setups etc. There's quite a lot of misinformation within this thread about what violates Mojang/Minecraft's EULA, so I believe Justis wanted to compile all he has on the matter and share it.

I'll leave that for him to answer, as he's the most qualified to do so.

Many other sections as listed above SOLELY violate relevant TOS agreements, you can't get away from that. We talk in averages here and even if a whole section wasn't to be removed, it might as well be since most of the content that has been or ever will be posted there is of that nature.

I guess you must be all for policing those sections with a strong and dedicated staff team, bringing in brand new rules that govern what can and cant be posted in these sections that "half violate" a TOS agreement. Guess what? MCM doesn't have a strong dedicated staff team and the absolute LAST thing the community needs is for more ridiculous rules to be imposed on us by an apparent elite few.

 

[Zyger]

Same goes for plugins, setups etc. There's quite a lot of misinformation within this thread about what violates Mojang/Minecraft's EULA, so I believe Justis wanted to compile all he has on the matter and share it.

https://account.mojang.com/documents/minecraft_eula

 

[Harry]

https://account.mojang.com/documents/minecraft_eula

That applies to copies of the game, and other content actually developed by Mojang. That does not apply to mods, plugins, etc which have no game or server code.

For this, Mojang enforces a different agreement here: https://account.mojang.com/documents/commercial_guidelines

EXTENDED FUNCTIONALITY AND “MODS”
If you comply with and follow the Essential Requirements (in the Brand and Asset Usage Guidelines) and Naming Guidelines above YOU MAY distribute or make available plug-ins and other bits and pieces of extended functionality etc. that you create (together, "Mods") for free and without any charge, but not if the purpose of your Mod is to advertise or promote other products or services (see the section below on Building Promotions with Minecraft). By "Mods," we mean something original that you created that doesn't contain a substantial part of our copyrightable code or content. We have the final say on what constitutes a Mod and what doesn't. When you combine your Mod with the Minecraft software, we will call that combination a "Modded Version" of the Game. You MAY NOT distribute any Modded Versions of our Game or software, though you may distribute Mods. You may make money from Mods as described below in the section, "Servers and Hosting."

I'll also direct you to what's written in our Redistribution Rights wiki page:

Due to Bukkit being licensed under the GNU LGPL, all derivative works must be licensed the same way, (spigot, forks, etc). One might argue that since Bukkit is a derivative work of CraftBukkit which is under the GPL, the LGPL license is invalid since it attempts to be a less restrictive license. One might go a step further and argue that since CraftBukkit is a reverse engineered copy of Mojang's proprietary server software, their GPL license is also invalid, and thus all derivative works are subject only and in full to Mojang's TOS.
In the end, the interpretation of everyone's self proclaimed licenses are out of our hands. Regardless, protecting and respecting the rights of content creators is our highest priority, thus, when you purchase a plugin, even if the author concedes to Bukkit's alleged licensing, you must get the author's explicit permission for you personally to upload it on our platform before you do so.

Edit: I will also add that if you're a plugin developer, who's never actually purchased the game, these terms don't apply to you.

You're free to distribute the plugin how you would like, as it's your own content. Is it now fair to remove the plugin section? I don't personally believe so.

 

[Harry]

How can you even test your plugins without owning a copy of the game or cracking it ?

Ask a friend of yours to test it. Simple.

 

[HCC]

Ask a friend of yours to test it. Simple.

Makes no sense.

 

[casket]

This will legitimately kill mc-market as a whole, Im on here for 2 reasons browsing the shoutbox and looking through accounts for sale, And when less people are on here to sell accounts and they move to a competitor meaning shoutbox activity will dwindle leaving alot of people leaving for a site with an active shoutbox and that allowed accounts for sale, And overall just ruin the integrity of mc-market.


Just want to CC : Verringer

Aekalix Reason for disagreeing?

 

[Baby]

Don't know why you're specifically targeting minecraft accounts when there are multiple other things that are done on this market that go against other terms of service.

 

[Harry]

Makes no sense.

What makes no sense? If you haven't bought the game, the next logical step would be to ask a friend to test it for you.

Everyone seems so focused on nitpicking arguments, which for the most part (such as plugins/setups etc), aren't even valid EULA violations.

Selling MC accounts is most definitely an EULA violation, and this is made clear. We should be doing as much as we can do accommodate the rights of others, including businesses of which have EULA's you've specifically agreed to.

Don't know why you're specifically targeting minecraft accounts when there are multiple other things that are done on this market that go against other terms of service.

How is this at all constructive to this discussion?

Why we're specifically looking at stopping the sale of MC accounts is outlined in Lotus' and Justis' responses.

 

[User]

Aekalix Reason for disagreeing?

because he's Aekalix, and from my past experiences with him, he's definitely a contrarian

 

[HCC]

What makes no sense? If you haven't bought the game, the next logical step would be to ask a friend to test it for you.

Everyone seems so focused on nitpicking arguments, which for the most part (such as plugins/setups etc), aren't even valid EULA violations.

Selling MC accounts is most definitely an EULA violation, and this is made clear. We should be doing as much as we can do accommodate the rights of others, including businesses of which have EULA's you've specifically agreed to.


How is this at all constructive to this discussion?

Why we're specifically looking at stopping the sale of MC accounts is outlined in Lotus' and Justis' responses.

No one would ask a friend.

 

[fruitymc]

That applies to copies of the game, and other content actually developed by Mojang. That does not apply to mods, plugins, etc which have no game or server code.

Please read the following to clear up your misconception on this and why you're wrong.

OWNERSHIP OF OUR GAME AND OTHER THINGS
Although we license you permission to install on your device and play our Game, we are still the owners of it. We are also the owners of our brands and any content contained in the Game. Therefore, when you pay for our Game, you are buying a license to play / use our Game in accordance with this EULA - you are not buying the Game itself. The only permissions you have in connection with the Game and your installation of it are the permissions set out in this EULA.

Any Mods you create for the Game from scratch belong to you (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don't sell them for money / try to make money from them and so long as you don't distribute Modded Versions of the Game. Remember that a Mod means something that is your original work and that does not contain a substantial part of our code or content. You only own what you created; you do not own our code or content.

(see bold text)[DOUBLEPOST=1572537986][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ask a friend of yours to test it. Simple.

This makes me believe you have no experience whatsoever about this. You're really going for a stretch here.

 

[Joey]

It is the one thing that embarrasses me about my position.

No sorry but you're an admin on a Minecraft forum that's what you're embarrassed about. How many people know about your position IRL? Exactly.

 

[Harry]

Please read the following to clear up your misconception on this and why you're wrong.

You're quoting a different part of the EULA, that directly contradicts their commercial guidelines. I've already explained our stance on plugins, and it's a fair one. The matter is entirely subjective due to Mojang's vague EULA/other agreements, and you've got to wonder why sites such as SpigotMC haven't stopped the sale of premium plugins, haven't you?

What isn't subjective is the violation of the EULA by selling accounts. That's clear cut, and you cannot debate that.

This makes me believe you have no experience whatsoever about this. You're really going for a stretch here.

Yes, it's a stretch, but I'm speaking as to why the entire section shouldn't be removed. It's logically plausible, even if it may not a common occurrence, so I'm unsure what your argument is here.

 

[casket]

This will legitimately kill mc-market as a whole, Im on here for 2 reasons browsing the shoutbox and looking through accounts for sale, And when less people are on here to sell accounts and they move to a competitor meaning shoutbox activity will dwindle leaving alot of people leaving for a site with an active shoutbox and that allowed accounts for sale, And overall just ruin the integrity of mc-market.


Just want to CC : Verringer

Caellum
So reason for disagreeing?

 

[fruitymc]

why sites such as SpigotMC haven't stopped the sale of premium plugins

Because

It’s unreasonable to think Mojang will pursue any repercussions for the violation of your contract with them. [...] however, that doesn’t make it okay.

You and Justis don't seem to be on the same line on this one if you ask me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯