Electronic Arts Taken to Court over Spore DRM

We recently reported about the problem with the Digital Rights Management system, called SecuRom, within Electronic Arts' game Spore. With talks on the official forum of the game reaching a critical level, moderators supposedly threatened users with a complete ban, which would allegedly force them to buy a new game. But this only added fuel to the fire, because today we received a report stating that a lawyer from California, Alan Himmelfarb, has taken EA to court over the DRM system.

The suit was filed in the Northern California District Court with the lawyer representing Melissa Thomas and "all consumers globally who have purchased the Spore computer game." The claims are a bit over the top though, with the lawyer saying that the SecuRom program "completely wipes their hard drive" and then takes control of the central part of the computer. While most of the negative reviews directed to EA were related to the very strict options the company had programmed into SecuRom, this complaint addresses the fact that the developer even dared to ship the game with this program.

"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. Consumers are given no control, rights or options over SecuROM. The program is uninstallable. Once installed, it becomes a permanent part of the consumer's software portfolio" cites the full complaint.

In return for all the damage it has caused his clients, the lawyer demands "disgorgement of unjust profits and damages for trespass, interference, unfair competition and consumer law violations," which in simpler terms means he wants big sums of money.

Although all the negative backlashes have been very severe, this didn't change EA's decision to incorporate SecuRom into other games that it has released, like Mass Effect or Crysis: Warhead, or upcoming titles like Red Alert 3.