Yoo-hoo - look what "puki" has in his mouth

http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/09/23/Spore.pdf

It is a law suit - ie, the actual lawsuit.

It's filed against EA and the Spore computer game.

looks juicy.



Handbags at 10 paces.

Wait a minute.

This is on my machine and I do not have Spore - the last game I installed was Crysis Warhead and a quick internet search shows I am a victim too.

I wonder how many other EA titles have this?

This means I can only re-install Crysis - Warhead 3 times.

Good job I didn't install it on my second gaming machine or that would be 2 lives used up.

What's the point of buying a physical DVD product that can only have 3 installs in a life-time? I didn't see that on the box.


EDIT:
Apparantly, you can install it as much as you like - the counter is purely the number of machines you can install it on.

However, ever that sounds odd.

Wow I didn't know that you could get sued for including more than one executable in your game but after reading the court case, it does seem that it would be classified a malicious software.

sounds like they are giving you 3 licenses

[edit] I installed b3d on my old machine. so is it legal to instal it on a new one if I delete it off of my old one so I don't have to buy two versions one of which I will never use

They're so kind!



Yes. Don't even worry about deleting it off your old one if it's for your own use.

Let's hope it works. I do wonder why Spore has brought this to attention and not The Sims, which has just as much SecuROM as any other EA game, the only noticeable difference being the method of authentication... I also wonder why no such thing has been filed against any publishers using Starforce which for a time was worse in all respects - the only difference here being EA is clearly a larger company than any of them.

I don't see this going anywhere truthfully, however I do hope it sets a trend and eventually the big publishers realise it's not worth the hassle.

EDIT @puki : SecuROM comes in many flavours. I don't know much about Cysis Warhead, but pretty much every EA title has used a form of SecuROM for the past (almost) 10 years or so. If you've installed any EA game, SecuROM is on your system in one form or another.

@Blitz Support Yes it is for my own use thanks :)

Blitz rocks ! :)

I can only guess that, several years down the line, the average casual gamer is perhaps a bit more tech savvy than was previously so.

"Although consumers are told that the game uses access control and copy protection technology, 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."

Looks like some lawyer doesn't exactly understand how this works ;)

EDIT:
"Even if the consumer uninstalls Spore, and entirely deletes it from their computer, SecuROM remains a fixture unless and until the consumer completely wipes their hard drive through reformatting or replacement of the drive."

Totally! If I get a new hard drive my old one automatically formats itself!

How many times can you re-install the Sims on the same machine?

Your spore CD would turn into a drink coaster after the 3rd install -- If I'm not mistaken that's not the case with the Sims.

This case doesn't make a single mention of that (or, perhaps one mention of it) - but the case is centred around the malware (sadly referred to as a virus) that is known as SecuROM, being installed and unremovable without prior warning or given consent.

That's not actually the case. My copy of Mass Effect has expired. One Motherboard Upgrade, one BIOS upgrade, one DVD Drive firmware upgrade. One phone call to EA. EA have acknowledged the problem, they just chose not to do anything about it. They won't even actually ask you any questions, they just automatically give out more activations, which seems to somewhat defeat the purpose.

Because Ubisoft responded to customer criticism, and dropped StarForce like a bad habit. EA not so much.

I doubt EA is significantly larger then Ubisoft.

Oh the irony. What makes you think the EAStore version of Spore doesn't have SecuROM?

No. But if you replace your drive with a new one, it's no longer relevant that SecuROM is on the old drive, because it's no longer part of the system.

Except it's now five, so you have a couple of extra months. It doesn't matter that this limitation might not effect you right away. Given enough time, it'll effect everyone. How long does it usually take you to get a new PC hardware configuration? 6 months? 12 months? 18 months? Depending on your upgrade cycle this could effect you anywhere between next year and 3-5 years. Now granted Spore probably isn't the next Counter Strike or anything, but limiting a games useful life to 5 years seems somewhat lacking of foresight. It is effectively what all the hippies thought the DMCA would do. Effectively eliminate copyright. Why? Because in 70 years, when Spores copyright expires, good luck trying to activate it! What they are doing is illegal (if not in the States, certainly in other countries that don't have the DMCA) and permanently damaging our cultural heritage. If they want to keep up this DRM charade, then they need to compensate by limiting Copyright to a more reasonable time frame.

To quote Chris Remo's recent post on penny-arcade completely out-of-context:


Read the full thing here.

I find it disturbing that so many of us clicked on a thread with the title this one has.

lol - its a puki post

When I read the title I thought you were going around like that...