Except he didn't purchase it, he admits that "they didn't ring it up" and his card wasn't even charged and of course we all know, he didn't have a receipt when he walked out of the store with the game.
He wasn't banned for simply playing it early, he was banned based on suspicion of piracy, he was unable to prove that it was legit, meaning he was authorized to use the copyrighted material. Part of the reason he was unable to prove it is because he wanted to protect the person or party who knowingly sold the game early, based on the fact that the game couldn't even be rung up in the system. Mom and pop shops generally don't even have systems like that.
If he walked into the store, paid for his game and then went home and got banned unknowingly, I'd have a problem with it. But again, that's not what happened here and he has a history of this sort of thing and was not forthcoming with information that could have helped him fight the ban.
That's assuming everything that he says is true, which I still don't believe.
I've said it before, but LIVE is a closed subscription based service that you pay for the privilege to use. It's not a given right. I don't agree with him losing his access to previously purchased content, but I have that same problem with Steam and Origin as well.
You guys are acting like MS charged him with a crime and that he deserves the right to a trial by a jury of his peers. It's their service, they can do what they want. His game is functional, his console is functional, (and he traded it in without disclosing its banned state, so he's as much as an asshole as MS is) he just lost the privilege to use LIVE due to his own actions.
Something else I would like to add, I waltzed into Meijer one day and saw they had Killzone 2 on the shelf for sale a FULL TWO WEEKS EARLY to the day. I picked that bad boy up and that evening was playing with the actual developers of the game online. We had a great time, talked about the game, strategies, etc. They never once asked me where I got the game, how I got the game, or anything. They did ask "Where are you from?" I told them and we kept playing. That was a lot of fun! Also, a totally different attitude towards me playing the game early.
To be fair, Sony didn't have a problem with piracy at that time, whereas MS has had severe problems since the beginning. And I'm you sure you also paid for the game and walked out of the store with a receipt.