EA facing more lawsuits over SecuROM 7 DRM

Posted at: 5:11pm 10th November 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Three more cases are brought against EA for its use of DRM in Mass Effect and the Spore Creature Creator, as well as other games

It was only a few weeks ago that the first lawsuit against EA was issued for the DRM used in Spore, but EA is now facing a growing stack of lawsuits in the US because of its use of SecuROM 7 in other games too.

It started with Melissa Thomas’ lawsuit in September, but last month three more came to light. Interestingly, two of these cases’ plaintiffs are using the same law firm as Melissa Thomas - KamberEdelson. KamberEdelson has already made a big name for itself in the world of DRM, being the first firm to successfully file a lawsuit against Sony’s XCP rootkit software, as well as Ubisoft’s Starforce DRM system.

The two cases involving KamberEdelson both concern EA, firstly with regards to Mass Effect, and secondly with regards to the free Spore Creature Creator. Both cases are very similar to the original Spore lawsuit, although the Mass Effect case interestingly adds a complaint about the use of activation limits to prevent second hand sales.

Meanwhile, a third case came via the law firm Girard Gibbs LLP at the end of last month, which is directed at EA’s use of SecuROM in a huge stack of games, including Spore, but also encompassing games in the Command & Conquer, Need for Speed, Medal of Honor and Sims 2 franchises. Meanwhile, US law firm Filkenstein Thompson LLC is also investigating EA’s use of SecuROM in its games and is requesting any information from purchasers of games such as Mass Effect and Spore.

SecuROM has been doing the rounds for a long time in various different versions, but the particularly controversial features came in version 7. This version adds an online activation system, as well as installing UAService7.exe, which can prevent emulation software from loading and has been known to affect some software packages from loading, such as Nero (a full guide to SecuROM will be featured in the next issue of Custom PC magazine).

It’s also worth noting that EA isn’t alone in its use of SecuROM version 7. In fact, 2K Games, Atari, Capcom, Codemasters, THQ and Ubisoft have also used the software in its games. There’s a full (and long) list of games that contain SecuROM 7 over at Reclaim Your Game, which includes some surprises, including Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Winter Assault and F.E.A.R., although it’s only some of EA’s games and Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2 that feature limited activations.