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EA Hit By Class-Action Suit Over Spore DRM
The ever-growing unrest caused by the DRM involved with EA's launch of Spore came to a head on Monday. A woman named Melissa Thomas filed a class-action lawsuit against EA for their inclusion of the SecuROM copy-protection software with Spore. This comes after protests of the game's DRM ranged from a bombardment of poor Amazon reviews to in-game designs decrying EA and its policies. Some of those policies were eased, but EA has also threatened to ban players for even discussing SecuROM on their forums. The court documents (PDF) allege:
"What purchasers are not told is that, included in the purchase, installation, and operation of Spore is a second, undisclosed program. The name of the second program is SecuROM ... Consumers are given no control, rights, or options over SecuROM. ... 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."
DINGDINGDING, we have a winner! Sometimes they list that there is, "antipiracy software" included, I hardly think that disclaimer explains away SecuROM.
Boycotting doesn't work anymore. I have been boycotting most music for years, yet the music companies just point their finger and blame the drop in sales to pirates. Software companies will do the same thing.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Several times in the PDF, the word "uninstallable" is used. However, it is used incorrectly. If the program actually were "uninstallable", then one of two things would be the case: (1) you would be able to uninstall it, or (2) you would not be able to install it.
Neither of these is the case. I believe the word the author was looking for was "ununinstallable", meaning that it could not be uninstalled.
Let's hope the lawsuit is undismissable because of this typo.
davidh
Or they could just call 'em "Rentals" as they should and stick on DRM eula(which nobody will read anyway).
I was considering getting it when I saw it on sale for $9.99 at Best Buy, until I remembered the fuss kicked up over it here. That, plus the fact that seeing a relatively new game go for $9.99 raises a few alarms in and of itself.
Just mercilessly crack every protection SecuROM employs, they're not that difficult. Irritating yes, but fairly trivial. Yes, implement Q-channel cloning in InfraRecorder. Yes, implement a very slow reverse-seek twin sector search, or a faster forward-sector position scan to detect twin sectors (they have to skip a sector, which indicates a hidden twin). Yes, simply mung the SecuROM wrapper and make it always fail open. Pirating the game isn't a great goal, but embarrassing the anti-piracy software maker is a clear necessity.
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If there are alternatives and those alternatives do well (without the DRM) then I'm sure the message will come across loud and clear.
And if it doesn't then the market will take care of them eventually. We're really only in the beginnings of this phase of the copyright game and it will take a while for it to play out but I'm pretty confident that eventually all media will be DRM free and will use open standards. It's the vested interests that have the most to lose here, new talent really couldn't care less, they'll take the audience and run with it.
MP3 Search Engine
Boycotts don't work in this industry. They never have. The closest things to a successful boycott was the Mortal Kombat issue between the Sega Genesis and Super NES. Which was easily corrected by the time Mortal Kombat 2 rolled around.
Check out StarDock's Gamers' Bill of Rights. http://www.stardock.com/about/newsitem.asp?id=1095
Sins of a Solar Empire is an excellent RTS game, with frequent major updates.
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
I boycott most music as well, but just because it sucks. The best music (IMO of course) was made in the 80's and 90's. The VAST majority of my downloaded music is content that I originally had a CD for, but have lost over the course of several moves.
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If a piece of software (or musc or anything) has DRM, that's an invitation to take it for free. If the only stuff that gets pirated is DRMed, they'll have to stop the DRM nonsense, now won't they?
Free Martian Whores!
I purchased Spore ( The Galactic edition ) from Amazon on September 8th, for overnight delivery.
I could not get it installed. After 11 days of going back and forth with EA tech support, EA informed me that they assigned the software key to someone else on September 7th. EA's solution, "return the software to my place of purchase".
Sounds great, but companies such as EA have told vendors not to take returns on software that is no longer in the shrinkwrap.
I have pointed out to EA that the only viable solution is for them to issue me a new key.
I have heard nothing from EA on this since Saturday.
Maybe it is time to fire up the lawyers. EA took my money, and has not given me a product in exchange.
It's been pointed out MANY times that Stardock games do have DRM. I point you to the sig.bin file (which causes a validation check if removed) in your install folder and this image:
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/8435/stardockactivationeo1.png
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Thanks for that. But for what's worth, the word "SecuROM" or "secure" are not mentioned there.
It mentions
Third Party Technology. The Software incorporates technology
developed by TransGaming Inc. (the "Cider Technology"). The terms
and conditions and licenses set out in the schedule apply to Cider
Technology.
but TransGaming Inc. did not develop SecuROM. So, EA, I think, has still their pants down.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I hope that everyone that bought Spore joins this lawsuit. Any additional revenue that EA thought they were going to get from the DRM (and that is a big if) has more than been eclipsed by what they are getting ready to pay their lawyers. Hitting EA in the pocketbook is a sure fire way to get them to change their policies and get rid of DRM all together.
Now I'm retired (so to speak) and in my late 30s and early 40s I've discovered scads of great music - much of it made in the 90s when I thought there was no good music being made.
None of it is the kind of thing ever to have made the radio here, of course.
This space available.
A class action is not the way to go - everyone filing against EA individually in small claims would SEVERELY damage them, as most small claims courts don't allow lawyers, which levels the playing field, and it also puts them at a severe manpower disadvantage - since most lawyers are disallowed the company's going to have a hard time representing itself in many of those court cases, which will end up default judgements and the plaintiffs will win simply because there's not enough manpower to handle every case in every state.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Steam has a bigger problem.
When you're tired of one game you can't sell it or give it away without doing the same with ALL of your Steam games, or using a separate account for each game.
Whenever possible I avoid purchasing games through Steam if they are available otherwise.
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Keeping in mind that in my, what, 16 years of playing games on a PC I've yet to actually sell a game, that doesn't really concern me much.