spore piracy

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/drm_is_helping_spore_make_history_as_the_most_pirated_game_ever.php

"You have the power to make this the most pirated game ever, to give corporate bastards a virtual punch in the face."

The funny part of security features is that they tend to be annoying to people who actually legitimately do something and tend to be either easy to bypass or a major incentive to hackers to create an easy way around. Since security features are usually just lines of code in a dll, or within the executable files, it's been common for cracks to be around for decades. I prefer them to digging through and finding the CD myself and given that I'm accustomed to using them, there's a system of backing up files for updating purposes, etc. About the only thing I find more annoying than a cumbersome security protocol on a game is a series of advertising/intro movies. None of which obscure any actual loading of files going on, it's just random crap running on my screen. But again, that's an easy fix (usually deleting/renaming those movie files works in some form or another). The iTunes DRM on music files is also a joke. I suspect it's there to keep people prisoner to Apple. Again it's rather easy to get around.

What's the point of security that simply annoys people?

I would be more interested to see how many copies of Spore were downloaded before it was officially released. Since I haven't gotten it or played it, I can't say how effective a fresh copy a month ahead of time would have been. That's usually the true test of a good pirate. Getting around security is one thing. Getting a product to market ahead of its release, totally different.