EA gets more DRM lawsuits over its use of SecuROM
Electronic Arts, the company responsible for the Spore DRM fiasco earlier this year, has been hit by two new lawsuits over the hated SecuROM ‘copy protection’ system that installs itself if you so much as look at an EA product, and can only be uninstalled by chucking your PC into a black hole.
Both suits have been filed in Northern California, one references the free ‘Spore Creature Creator’ demo/software toy, and the other names The Sims 2: Bon Voyage as the culprit. These follow another class-action suit earlier this year. In the suits EA are branded as “immoral, unethical, oppressive [and] unscrupulous”. Crikey.
The first suit, from Richard Eldridge in Pennsylvania, complains that the SecuROM system was installed, without his knowledge or consent, when he loaded the free trial edition of Spore Creature Creator. He calls it ‘deceptive and unlawful’.
“The inclusion of undisclosed, secretly installed DRM protection measures with a program that was freely distributed constitutes a major violation of computer owners’ absolute right to control what does and what does not get loaded onto their computers, and how their computers shall be used….”
The other suit makes similar complaints, but it seems it also fouled up the plaintiff’s PC. Diana Cortez reckons that after installing “The Sims 2: Bon Voyage” her PC would no longer recognise backup data that she’d previously burnt to CD, reporting the CDs as empty. It also started reporting her USB Flash Drive and iPod as being empty, too.
She’s not happy. She says EA are engaging “unfair business practices ” that are “immoral, unethical, oppressive [and] unscrupulous….”. Gosh, Diana – don’t hold anything back. Still, she and Richard do have a point. If EA genuinely didn’t notify them that it was installing SecuROM then we could see another Sony Rootkit debacle all over again, and it could get very messy for EA.
EA (via Inquirer)
Related posts: SPORESUIT: EA sued over Spore DRM | Spore fans threatened with game ban over DRM discussion
