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Video Game Installs Anti-Piracy Software
- Text size
News.au.com
November 28, 2008
The freshly-launched Spore video game that lets people play God has been hit with a lawsuit accusing its publisher of slipping devilish anti-piracy software onto players’ machines.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The lawsuit filed this week in a federal court in Northern California contends that players weren’t warned about tenacious digital rights management (DRM) software that stays in computers even if game programs are removed.
Spore publisher Electronic Arts told buyers that there are anti-piracy safeguards but didn’t advise people the SecuROM program it used “is essentially a virus that installs itself without warning,” the lawsuit alleges.
The DRM software attaches itself to the “command and control centers” of computers and can track activities, block certain operations and even disrupt hardware, according to the suit filed this week.
A US woman was named as the plaintiff in the lawsuit, which is seeking class action status to represent all Spore buyers.
The filing demands a jury trial and wants Electronic Arts forced to pay unspecified damages as well as turn over money it has made from Spore, which went on sale in Europe, Asia, Australia and the US this month.
Electronic Arts said it does not discuss pending litigation.
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November 28th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
actually went on sale back in August, but yeah ever since I have installed it, my mac has been going through a series of frantic events when i exit out of the game
i mean what they have done is pretty immoral but these days if you’re immoral you’re part of the big bad majority
November 28th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I remember when the first CD came out with this…It was the Beastie Boys cd and it had anti-piracy software that secretly installed on computers blocking you from adding downloaded or importe music to your playlists. Ihope EA gets their pants sued off!!!!!!!!!
November 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Why is it that Software companies and Internet websites think it is ok to use my valuable hard drive space for software, cookies, spyware, etc, without my permission? They should use their servers and bandwidth for their business operations, not mine. Do they think I really want to give up valuable CPU cycles for them to monitor me? But not only do they install this software, without your knowledge, it installs itself in a way that makes it near impossible to remove even after you remove the software you bought. Software companies should be held responsible for the damage this does to your operating system. Also, boycott any company that shows up as a popup ad while you are surfing the web. If enough of us do it, popup ads will go the way of the dinosaurs… (and Netflix, that means you)
November 28th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
This is not good
November 28th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Now EA is in the spyware business. I wish EA would go out of business.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I mean it’s not as if you can pirate it, because we all know that’s completely illegal and NOT what this person did to get around the DRM…
November 28th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Wow! You guys are just a few months behind on this one. Do you not scan your own forum?
November 28th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Iiiiiirony. This will only motivate people to pirate the game instead of buying virus infested crap.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I downloaded this game a month ago, and only kept it for about a week because it was too time consuming.
I noticed many references to a One World Government in the game play itself. The object of the game is to evolve your creature up through the stages: single cell, animal, tribal, city , and space.
When you get to a city stage, you can view the entire world and see groups of cities broken up into countries with borders. The object of the game at this point is trying to capture other countries using Economic, Religious or Military persuasion. As well as using other countries influence against your enemies.
After you have given all other countries a reason to bow to you and every country is under your banner, and icon pops up that lets you know you have moved into a new stage. Besides a little flag on top this icon looks EXACTLY like the world bank logo.
This game is very saturated with New World Order / “Tragedy and Hope” idealism!
November 28th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
It reminds me of the “Ads” in Battlefield 2142. The computer records what way your character is facing in relation to the “billboards” and sends that information back to EA. Don’t like it? “uninstall the game” says EA. Nice.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
EA just made a HUGE MISTAKE with this dangerous move! They just lost a few more customers due to their greed literally speaking. DRM software in general is bad due to these obvious reasons.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
thanks to the hackers, this and will always be bypassed even with all updates enabled. dont worry about it. they will continue to waste their own money on these types of anti piracy techniques. i can find spore on any file sharing networks fully cracked, just like any other game out there.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Game publishers have been cutting their own throats for years.. DRM’s typically slow framerates. Blacklist software. They often have trouble with hardware. Break Admin/Root permissions. Compromise Security,ect.. Install rootkits. They violate their own EULA’s not to mention fair use. Broken Eula=Broken Eula=Open season.. Most of it’s usually easy enough to fix.. It just takes time..
November 28th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
The freshly-launched Spore video game that lets people play God
ha ha ha it rather sounds that the game is “playing god” with your computer!
just boycot the crap.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
what sucks is if your computer is on a network it will infect any unprotected computer on that network, some with protection will fall prey to this to. Just speaking from experience. Thanks to EA and my RM’s gf installing it my laptop is fucked and I dont even play games on it.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Wow having to change my name and email just to post on this site each time is annoying.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
What next “I’m afraid I cannot allow you to do that Dave”
November 28th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
oh SoB! I bought this game back in August and still have it installed… Sweet… =\
November 28th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
ea uses scureRom for almost every game they’ve put out in the last year or two… why now does someone complain?
November 28th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
How right you are #23!!!
A society where you have no privacy to live free, is police state.
November 28th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
In the recently released by EA games “Red Alert 3″
in intro movie you can hear the phrase “… come general. a NEW WORLD ORDER awaits!”
November 28th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
SecuROM has been around for many years now as a anti-piracy security measure. There are numerous programs written to counter is specifically. When a game is hacked and put on a torrent site and you download and install it you never have to worry bout the virus….
November 29th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Fuck that shit, the NWO removed my initial post. Guess I said too much. Damn you criminals, have your fun now but our time will come and you will be purged.
November 29th, 2008 at 3:52 am
#23 –> Nice, a little refresher from America Freedom to Fascism (rest in peace Aaron Russo) and also beefed up a little bit with all that extra stuff. I like it.
November 29th, 2008 at 4:33 am
It’s just EA trying to info-jack computers in order to learn more about consumer activities. They do it secretively; basically turning their games into trojan-horses full of crap you don’t want, that you have to take, in order to play their games.
The good news is that Spore isn’t a very good game. The bad news is that moves like this on EA’s part could lead to disinterest by casual gamers; the very people EA wants to attract with such a cutesy game like Spore.
Now, if only the gaming media could get behind a story like this; instead of withholding reviews of games until two weeks after they go to market because they are the same people that sponsor the media sites: http://mediacondom.com/?p=161
November 29th, 2008 at 5:11 am
Another reason if i have to run WIN games, run them with sandboxie.
Or run them in linux using Crossover/Wine
November 29th, 2008 at 7:54 am
http://www.survivalistseeds.com
http://www.cuttingedge.org
http://www.radioliberty.com
http://www.roguegovernment.com
the satanic elite know their master and his enemy,
this is for your soul,
seek God and you will find Him, apart from religion…
take care and be safe,
Steven
contactable on stevenbatman AT gmail.com
November 29th, 2008 at 8:20 am
good thing i download all my EA games with secuROM removed
November 29th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Gman Says:
November 29th, 2008 at 8:20 am
good thing i download all my EA games with secuROM removed
Yeah, and TONS of trojans & spyware. Silly fool.
November 29th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Whammo, scene releases taken from a legit scene sources do not contain trojans nor spyware. Cracked software taken from webshit P2P, Rapidshare, Torrent, etc. might very well be garbage. Silly Fool.
November 29th, 2008 at 11:55 am
A videogame that lets players be GOD? That is one of the most evil concepts I can imagine. Truly these are frightening times!!
November 29th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Does anyone know if there is any way to detect if such ‘anti-piracy software’ has already installed on your computer?
November 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
People have time to play games like these? Why don’t you go out and go fishing, camping or hunting? Go see you family. Stop buying all this 300 dollar game systems and 60 dollar games. Go invest in gold, silver, food , guns and ammunition. You suckers pay for this crap and end up getting spyware on your computer. YOU DESERVE IT! YOU DID NOT HAVE TO BUY THE PRODUCT!
November 29th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
#37 Of course they don’t deserve to have their computers hyjacked and infected. You have your hobbies and they have theirs. If you buy a booby trapped gun and it blows your face off does that mean you deserved it? Heck, you didn’t have to buy it right?
November 29th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
EA = MIC
November 30th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
it’s ironic that the workaround, i think anyway, is to make a dump or copy of the game disc and run it through a virtual disc-mounting program like daemon tools or whatever has support for SecuROM copy protection. or people will just run it in virtual pc and wipe the virtual hard disk image every so often.
November 30th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
As cigarette companies have to put warning labels on, why are they trying to hide their protections from the user ? Are they not afraid you won’t buy their product if you know ? Guilty they are, I know I thought of buying one for the grandkids till I read some time ago it was shipping with that on a PC site. I know I bought another CD of rolling stones Big Hits vol 2 to replace the one my daughter lost, and when I put it on my DVD/CD player it flashed on the start DRM so that has not come near any PC my family owns. MAGIX software makes MP 3 maker that when you record as a movie it will strip out just the sound from the Audio/ Video file you have made. Then you just delete the Video recording of the CD after you strip the music from it. It comes out as a WAV file, but it is better than taking a chance, and infecting your PC. You have to buy from companies, and artist that say they don’t have DRM, it is the only way to show were sick of it. Support a company like http://www.magnatune.com that allows you to have a use license for you to use their music in making videos provided you give them credit in the credits. Support the good companies, and boycott the evil ones. Alex Jones videos I trust, but others ? Who knows.