EA’s new Copy Protection
EA is one of those who seem to have invested most heavily in the new version of SecuROM, or at least the most draconic version of it. Games such as Spore have received a lot of favorable reviews for the game itself, but the copy protection’s limits have made people get up in arms and boycotting it.
Basically, it installs a driver in ring 0, and requires that you be online when you do the install. It also has a limit on how many times you can install the game. This was initially 3, but after the major backlash they upped it to 5. And before that, they were talking about requiring you authenticate your copy online every 10 days, or it would stop working. You can get new activations by calling EA, but they will assume you are a pirate.
This is going to be fun in a few years when EA decides to pull down the authentication servers, or you decided to install the game while at a cabin in the mountains, or you’ve had to reinstall your OS 3 or 5 times.
http://doublebuffered.com/2008/05/07/eas-new-copy-protection/
The common working theory these days is that this isn’t implemented to cut down on piracy (since everyone knows that doesn’t work anyway), but to cut down on second-hand sales. I.e. if I buy a game, people will be less inclined to buy the used games from me after I’m done at a reduced price.