Return the sale of Minecraft accounts

[User]

... in some capacity. I'd like for this to be a good place to discuss the concept in general, so I'll try to briefly state my main thoughts on the matter and potential ways to solve these issues, and allow others to expand on them in ways that I might not be able to.

1. Minecraft's EULA is not legally binding. Based on what I've researched, EULA's can only be legally binding to those that have expressly agreed to the terms and been given ample time to read and understand them. [source, court precedents]

2. Minecraft's EULA has been repeatedly broken by many other sites and services, that Mojang has taken no action towards, even if they may have threatened to do so. For example, 90% of all Minecraft servers created in the past 5 years, many of which are larger and more active than MC-Market.

3. Services/products that violate their respective TOS' are still present on MCM. nfdegreu3i23r22r has mentioned many of these, including Youtube channels [source from an official Youtube team email; it is not illegal, but it is not supported, similarly to the way Minecraft account selling functions], Fortnite/Valorant/Epic accounts/items [source], PayPal currency conversion [source], and so on. Yet, these sections remain untouched.


My proposed solution:

Allowing Minecraft accounts to be sold EXCLUSIVELY with transaction ID. The transaction ID is only sent once to the original owner of an account, and as most mail services are infinitely more secure than Minecraft, the likelihood of an account with TID being cracked or illegitimately obtained is very slim. With Mojang likely allowing accounts to be directly linked to a secure Microsoft email in the near future [source], TIDs may not even be needed in the future for any accounts that have gone through this migration process. This would address the vast majority of concerns that these accounts are unethically obtained, leaving the only issue to be that of account selling breaking Mojang's TOS. Now, besides the EULA not being legally enforceable, nor taken seriously by the majority of the community, Mojang has gone against their own rules and even against certain privacy laws (specifically, the GDPR laws regarding personal info), as well as removing access to accounts from legitimate users that have never broken a single rule in Mojang's TOS or EULA. Mojang has done just as much as MC-Market has, if not more.


Any legal experts are free to weigh in on the legality of these practices and the likelihood that MC-Market would face a lawsuit, or even to lose the lawsuit; I'm not a professional, I'm just a normal user that doesn't want to see the sites community die off.

 

[Sloth]

All users who have a minecraft account must accept the EULA. So by selling accounts you are inherently accepting, and violating Mojang EULA. I never said what you said, so don't twist my words. MCM is simply enforcing Mojang's EULA as per Mojang's request. Legally binding or not, MC-Market made the ethically correct move, and legally correct (even if not necessarily required).

I've also seen all major Minecraft related forums lose access to PayPal recently. I have no clue why, but one could wonder if it's relating to Mojang's crackdown on their copyrights and eula violations. And if MC-Market has to pick between a resource section (it uses the PayPal API) and advertisements, or selling accounts. They're going to pick the resource section and advertisements.

Even so; Let's say Mojang has no ground to stand on, they can still open a law suit against MC-Market with their Microsoft lawyers. Would you want to go to court with their lawyers even if you were pretty sure you'd probably win? You'd likely avoid it. It's one of those things that they would rather be safe then sorry and I entirely understand.

Ah there it is. You fully acknowledge that Mojang might not have any legal grounds whatsoever so force sites to abide by the EULA. You’re just too scared to stand up to them because they have money.

If Mojang goes beyond preventing the sale of Minecraft accounts I’m going to laugh my ass off when you guys whine and bitch about it being unfair.

 

[OAliverpool]

Mojang can be concerned all they want about people selling accounts, it doesn’t mean we have to listen to them or meet their demands. Their wishes won’t hold up in a court of law.

They would get slaughtered in a court of law

 

[User]

They would get slaughtered in a court of law

Mojang would, yes.

 

[Sloth]

Also,

They would get slaughtered in a court of law

That’s pure speculation. We’ll never know unless we try.

 

[Annie]

Ah there it is. You fully acknowledge that Mojang might not have any legal grounds whatsoever so force sites to abide by the EULA. You’re just too scared to stand up to them because they have money.

If Mojang goes beyond preventing the sale of Minecraft accounts I’m going to laugh my ass off when you guys whine and bitch about it being unfair.

"You"? It's not me..? Also why are you so aggressive..? I am by no means a lawyer, I again did not say that. I have no legal knowledge to say whether they have legal grounds or not. Stop twisting my words, you're being extremely immature. I never said either of the things you said I said. I simply said, it would make sense for MCM to want to avoid a lawsuit with Microsoft. No more, no less.

 

[Sloth]

"You"? It's not me..? Also why are you so aggressive..? I am by no means a lawyer, I again did not say that. I have no legal knowledge to say whether they have legal grounds or not. Stop twisting my words, you're being extremely immature. I never said either of the things you said I said. I simply said, it would make sense for MCM to want to avoid a lawsuit with Microsoft. No more, no less.

I never called you a lawyer... stop putting words into my mouth

If you’re going to make statements involving legality then I have every right to potentially dispute those claims. I never held you in high legal regard at any point. (Especially since you contradicted yourself almost 3 times in your original reply as to whether Mojang’s actions towards Mc-Market are legally viable.)

 

[Annie]

I never called you a lawyer... stop putting words into my mouth

If you’re going to make statements involving legality then I have every right to potentially dispute those claims. I never held you in high legal regard at any point. (Especially since you contradicted yourself almost 3 times in your original reply as to whether Mojang’s actions towards Mc-Market are legally viable.)

I didn't say you called me a laywer. I'm done responding to someone who acts like a child. I literally contradicted myself, because as I have said, I am not saying it's legal or not. I'm simply going over both sides of the coin. Anywhom, this will be my last response because I'm not gonna sit here and argue over something pointless.

 

[Sloth]

I didn't say you called me a laywer. I'm done responding to someone who acts like a child. I literally contradicted myself, because as I have said, I am not saying it's legal or not. I'm simply going over both sides of the coin. Anywhom, this will be my last response because I'm not gonna sit here and argue over something pointless.

“I am by no means a lawyer, I again did not say that” implies I thought of you in some legal regard... Please don’t flatter yourself I didn’t.

It’s not surprising you immediately jump ship the moment someone doesn’t agree with you, it explains exactly why you’re so afraid to stand up against Mojang. Cya later

 

[Rhos]

Regardless of whether you think it's enforcable or not, lawyers are expensive and you can bet on Microsoft dragging it out for long enough that MCM would just straight up run out of money.

Also, the lawsuit doesn't specifically have to involve the EULA, as long as they can prove that MCM materially affects their bottom line then they've won. It's genuinely just not worth it.

 

[Mick]

I understand the frustration you have regarding the recent changes that we have made, but we are in contact with Mojang's legal team and have made this decision to ensure that we can sustain ourselves as not just a marketplace, but a legitimate one that we're all proud to be a part of.

But see, that's the thing. Their site wouldn't get shut down over this, since it's not legally enforceable in the slightest. And that EULA, by the way, applies exclusively to end users; therefore, MC-Market being a platform for those that must follow the EULA would not then force MC-Market to also follow that EULA. The EULA neither applies to MCM nor is it enforceable, so any threat MC-Market may get will be an empty one.

I think that you are mistaken on that matter, and that you should avoid unintentionally spreading misinformation moving forward please.

We want to protect our community while still ensuring that we can uphold Mojang's EULA and TOS, that's all that there is to it.

Denied, thanks for the suggestion