EA sued over anti-piracy software in new game

BANGALORE: Electronic Arts, a leading publisher of video games is in a soup over its controversial decision to bundle digital rights-management software in its new game, Spore.

A game fan from California has sued the company over this decision, which she says would limit the number of computers on which users can be installed.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in California last week by Maryland resident Melissa Thomas alleges that Electronic Arts did not disclose the critical details about the anti-piracy software, SecuROM, which is secretly installed to the command and control center of the computer.

Consumers can't uninstall the software without reformatting their hard drive, she alleged. The manufacturers had installed digital-rights software in the game to prevent illegal copying and piracy by limiting the number of times the game can be installed on a computer.

With this software restriction, gamers could install the game only three times on a single machine, as the game's 'certificate', gets expired at the third time of installation.

However, the row over the game forced the EA to issue an apology, and it said that now Spore can be re-installed an unlimited number of times, as long as it is not installed on more than five separate computers. Reports say more than a million copies of the game were sold since its launch on September 7.

In 2005 Sony BMG’s decision to bundle music CDs with hidden digital rights management software had also sparked a row.