The British authorities have confirmed that at least 6 former users of the torrent site OiNK have been arrested, more than the single user that was reported on Friday.
All of those arrested were pre-release uploaders, people who shared full albums days or weeks before the official retail date. The arrest were all made between May 23rd and May 28th and include 5 men and 1 woman, all aged between 19 and 33.
Allegedly, all suspects were arrested on suspicion of “Conspiracy to Defraud the Music Industry” and were fingerprinted and forced to leave DNA samples.
The BPI left a statement about the matter, but for now most of the details remain vague. “The BPI and IFPI worked with the police in order to close down the OiNK tracker site last October. The illegal online distribution of music, particularly pre-release, is hugely damaging, and as OiNK was the biggest source for pre-releases at the time we moved to shut it down. We provided the information to assist this investigation, but this is now a police matter and we are unable to comment further at this stage.”
Result for: single user
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Electronics Arts claiming that the publisher is violating California law by hiding the fact that the hit game Spore install SecuROM DRM which is impossible to remove.
EA has been under fire since the release of the game on September 7th with many gamers taking exception to the crippling SecuROM DRM which allows for the game to only be installed 5 times over its lifetime and only allows for a single user profile.
The more bitter complaint however is that after it is installed, SecuROM cannot be removed and will linger on your PC until a reformat. SecuROM could even be considered malware by some accounts as it will monitor your computer’s activities, preventing duplication.
The SecuROM backlash seems to be hitting EA in their wallets as well, with some reports saying 500,000 illegal downloads were made of the game in just the first week.
The new suit, filed by law firm Kamber Edelson on behalf of all Spore buyers, says the publisher violated the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law by not making clear that SecuROM cannot be uninstalled once installed.
“Although consumers are told the game uses access control and copy protection technology, consumers are not told that this technology is actually an entirely separate, stand-alone program which will download, install, and operate on their computer,” reads the complaint. “Once installed, it becomes a permanent part of the consumer’s software portfolio. Even if the consumer uninstalls Spore, and entirely deletes it from their computer, SecurROM remains a fixture on their computer unless and until the consumer completely wipes their hard drive through reformatting or replacement of the drive.”
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Result for: single user
Electronics Arts has threatened users on its official forum boards with a ban if they continue to talk about the crippling SecuROM DRM that has been as much of a headline this month as the release of the hit game Spore.
Although it appears now that the company has backtracked on their threats, the fact that it occurred at all is alarming. The SecuROM DRM used on Spore limits a buyer to five installs over the lifetime of the game and only allows for a single user profile.
“SecuROM has been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads,” commented a moderator on the forum. “If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum. If there is any change you will be able to read it on the official Spore site.”
“Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.”
Later in the conversation however a producer for EA Maxis changed tones when he said that the discussion was fine as long as it was “civil.”
“We are happy to support healthy exchanges on the forums. And people will only get banned for breaking the rules,” read his post. “Discussing DRM is not breaking the rules - and as long as it is a civil conversation, it’s cool with us.”
