EA getting what it Deserves

[MournelitheCalix]

The first shots are being fired, a class action lawsuit has been filed in US district court over Spore's DRM.  This couldn't happen soon enough.  I recommend everyone follow the link and write friend of the court letters.  I am also going to donate money to the court costs as soon as I can find out who the litigants are.


http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/24/ea-faces-class-action-lawsuit-over-spore-drm

[Morat20]

The first shots are being fired, a class action lawsuit has been filed in US district court over Spore's DRM.  This couldn't happen soon enough.  I recommend everyone follow the link and write friend of the court letters.  I am also going to donate money to the court costs as soon as I can find out who the litigants are.


http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/24/ea-faces-class-action-lawsuit-over-spore-drm

I sense epic lawsuit fail after reading this bit:

"Electronic Arts, a leading maker of computer games, defrauds consumers through its "Spore" game, which "completely wipes their hard drive" and replaces it with an undisclosed program that prevents the computer from operating under some circumstances and disrupts hardware operations, a class action claims in Federal Court. ".

Unless the article is completely misleading on the lawsuit proper (I have no interest in reading the actual filing), I don't see this going ANYWHERE.

[Sky]

Srsly. I would rather not have DRM, but the anti-DRM froth is amusing. 

[Hawkbit]

They corrected their article.  CHN is just a reporting service... the actual suit says nothing of the sort.  I linked the class action filing in the 'sacrificing virgins on easter island' thread.

My wife is an attorney, she liked the class action filing - thinks it may actually have a shot in the dark at least.  They have testimony from Amazon.com listed right in the filing, along with other stories of people needing to format/reinstall just to get rid of Securom.

[Sky]

They have testimony from Amazon.com listed right in the filing

See? 

[Koyasha]

I'm by no means a lawyer and don't know how technical courts get about these sort of things, but I noticed while skimming the lawsuit that they often used 'uninstallable' when they really meant 'not uninstallable'.  I wonder if that has any chance of screwing up their proceedings.

[Triforcer]

These cases turn on one thing only: class certification.  If the class is certified (five or so factors, won't bore you with technical jargon) then EA will do pretty much anything to make it go away.  Class actions never go to trial, if the class is certified, every Spore buyer will be eligible to get a nickel off their next EA game and the lawyers will buy gold toilets (slight exaggeration, given recent laws concerning that sort of outcome in this type of suit, but EA will do ANYTHING to make this go away.  The one thing they can't afford is an anti-DRM ruling in a actual court). 

[Moaner]

They ran this story on NPR a few days ago on All Things Considered.  I laughed.

I do hope this leads to friendlier DRMs though.

[Kitsune]

I've read peoples' opinions online that went along the tune of 'quit whining, the DRM is fine', 'it lets you have three whole installs, why would you need more?' and so on.  These people don't seem to realize that if the consumer shuts up and takes it today, tomorrow the DRM will be worse, and one day we'll all be walking around with RFID chips in our skulls to allow us our fifteen executions of Bioshock 5 per $69.95, or convenient subscription plan of only $99.95 monthly for unlimited play.  It's a necessary thing to consistently push back against consumer-unfriendly practices to ensure that they don't grow worse, and by 'push back' I don't mean easily-ignored forum whining, but things that actually impact the bottom line.  Don't buy the thing.  File complaints with regulatory agencies.  Fire up a lawsuit if it eats your hard drive.