DRM and the Piracy issue in general has been causing a hell of a load of debate, anger and frustration for many people over recent months. The issue has become increasingly pressing since the release of Spore and the announcement of DRM for Red Alert 3. I have seen threads popping up in forums all over the place discussing DRM and piracy within and seperate from the context of Spore.

The first thread, and I the biggest that I am aware of so far is this one from the PC Gamer forums. This thread has spiralled around for over a month now and has featured many arguments on the role of DRM in pushing people into piracy.

Secondly we have this slightly less extensive thread from halflife2.net where many people again deride DRM and the measures implemented in Spore. This has seen a craze of DRM related threads including this one revealing Crysis Warhead will be requiring online activation.

Finally we can see that the madness has even spread to the Football Manager forums with this thread discussing people’s fears that Football Manager 2009 will include some draconian DRM measures.

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Spore, Mass Effect, I am sorry, but you have just been struck of my buying list if this Shacknews report is true. The Shacknews report links to this thread on the BioWare forums where BioWare technical producer Derek French reveals some very interesting, but worrying information regarding copy-protection measures for the PC versions of Mass Effect and Spore.

While his full post follows after the jump I will give the lowdown on what he says.
- You can install Mass Effect as normal – internet activation required

- From this point on you don’t need the Mass Effect PC DVD in the PC to play

- SecuROM will check the validity of the CD Key after 5 days of Mass Effect being installed

- After this check you have 10 days of playing guaranteed.

- Upon starting Mass Effect SecuROM will attemp to check the CD Key

- If SecuROM isn’t able to check within these 10 days then the CD Key will have to be re-checked before playing again

- If the CD Check is bad then the game will be locked until you get in touch with EA Tech Support

- This system is being used on Spore as well

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