EA being sued over DRM

[Nodz86]

EA sued over Spore DRM

Posted at: 4:59pm 25th September 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Case alleges that the stealthy inclusion of SecuROM in Spore violates Californian law

EA is already facing the wrath of thousands of PC gamers after including SecuROM on new PC games such as Mass Effect and Spore. However, the games company is now being taken to court in California by a plaintiff who believes that the surreptitious inclusion of SecuROM actually breaks the law.

 

According to the legal document, Melissa Thomas is suing EA ‘on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated’ after buying Spore. The case alleges that ‘When consumers make their purchase of Spore, they are told that they are purchasing “an exciting new simulation game that lets you develop your own personal universe.” However, the document adds that ‘What purchasers are not told is that, included in the purchase, installation, and operation of Spore is a second, undisclosed program.’

 

That second, undisclosed program is, of course, the much-hated SecuROM, which the document details. ‘Although consumers are told that the game uses access control and copy protection technology,’ says the document, ‘consumers are not told that this technology is actually an entirely separate, stand-alone program which will download, install, and operate on their computers, along with the Spore download. Consumers are given no control, rights, or options over SecuROM.’

 

The document goes on to say that ‘even if the consumer uninstalls Spore, and entirely deletes it from their computer, SecuROM remains a fixture in their computer unless and until the consumer completely wipes their hard drive through reformatting or replacement of the drive.’ Complaints about SecuROM aside, though, the main crux of the case appears to be that EA doesn’t tell you about it.

 

The case document alleges that ‘Electronic Arts’ intentionally did not disclose to any such purchasers that the Spore game disk also possessed a second, hidden program which secretly installed to the command and control center of the computer (Ring 0, or the Kernel), and surreptitiously operated, overseeing function and operation on the computer, preventing the computer from operating under certain circumstances and/or disrupting hardware operations.’ This, according to the case, violates a number of California laws, including the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and California’s Unfair Competition.

 

Spore’s DRM system first limited the number of installations of the game to three, but this was later expanded to five installations after a public backlash, with thousands of one-star reviews appearing on Amazon. Spore’s DRM system also faced a backlash after it became apparent that you couldn’t set up more than one account in the game on shared computers.

 

 

Are you bothered by DRM systems such as SecuROM, or would you boycott a game because of them? Should EA be taken to court over the DRM in Spore? Let us know your thoughts.

 

From Custom PC

[DriftNismo]

Another company being sued for a stupid thing. I don't see what the problem with SecuROM is, it's a perfectly legitimate program that doesn't damage your computer in any way, just helps EA make sure copies aren't made of it.

[HavockJoker]

Custom PC[/url]

:wtf: I didn't even know about that.

[Andreas¹]

:wtf: So... they are getting mad because EA included a security program?

[Nodz86]

Its because it is a seperate program and it is not pointed out on the box that it is needed to be installed so you can play the game. I think thats the long and short of it.

[HavockJoker]

That is why its downloaded more than bought.

[iBilo]

They're making a hissy fit because its against the law/data protection act maybe to include extra programs in without the customer's permission.

[HavockJoker]

Its kinda obvious that this is what is causing the problem Chris

[iBilo]

yeah but AHHHHHHHHHHH O_O

[BAk99]

yup, another stupid court case.

america for you.

[Speed]

Lol, it's not stupid.

 

If you think how many times you've had to uninstall TDU, trying to fix various issues with it, I can tell you for sure that I've had to at least 10 times. If I was to have this problem with Spore, I would only be able to uninstall it 4 times, after that, then I would be stuck with a useless disk.

 

Even just adding in some RAM means it has to reevaluate your system, and uses up one of your installs, as would any other hardware installation.

 

The main problem with it is you're basically simply renting the game from EA, rather than actually buying a game like you would from any other publisher :(

 

After you've upgraded your computer 5 times, or installed it on vaiours computers, or combinations of this, you're left with a disk with a great game on, that you simply cannot use.

[eleKtro]

What worse is that EA mainly used this Securom thing to prevent people from making copies of the game illegally, and illegal copies of the game were out before the game was released!

[Car Freak]

It's the same thing with Starforce a while back innit?

 

A secondary program that is nigh-on impossible to get rid of, and that has to go on if you want to play. Furthermore, it's something that may interfere with other programs or hardware... I think those people have a case against EA. I'd be quite miffed if that happened to the new NFS as well