SecuROM Lawsuit in the Works

The unpopular DRM from SonyDADC used prominently for anti-piracy purposes by game publisher EA and others is facing yet another class action lawsuit  related to the popular creature sim, Spore. BluesNews posts a link to a GameCyte article:

On November 26th, California resident Alex McQuown added one more Spore suit to the pile — but this one’s a little bit different. This time, attorneys are attempting to use Spore as a symbol for Electronic Arts’ entire SecuROM initiative, and hope to shut it all down at the same time.

Filed in California’s Northern District Court by attorneys from the offices of Finkelstein Thompson, the body of the lawsuit looks much the same as the three submitted by Thomas, Eldridge and Cortez earlier this year. In much the same way, it calls out SecuROM for secretly installing itself on the computers of unwitting Spore Creature Creator users; in much the same way, it talks about SecuROM as a pest that interferes with other software and hardware, and one that can never be completely removed.

This suit differs from others in the following:

First, his lawyers claim that SecuROM isn’t merely a nuisance, but that it actually causes physical harm to the computers of those who use it. The document cites “a damaged CD-ROM drive” and “a damaged graphics card” among McQuown’s issues, and states that the class members “will have to spend countless hours and money to repair the damage to their computer.” (bolding ours)

Second, the document suggests that SecuROM is useless even for its intended purpose, and thus that “EA has needlessly caused [sic] its consumers time, money and frustration by having to repair various computer problems.”

 ...third, buried near the end of the document, is the kicker — the lawsuit isn’t just about Spore: The class[bringing the suit] is initially defined as follows: All persons or entities in the United States that have purchased an Electronic Arts computer game with SecuROM.