Posted 04/03/09 at 10:03:54 AM by Paul Lilly
Good news for Digital Rights Management fans, and particularly for those who take masochistic pleasure in filling their machines with SecuROM-protected titles. Electronic Arts, the company who caused an internet uproar over its custom SecuROM implementation on Spore, has released a SecuROM de-authorization tool.
"Certain EA PC games with SecuROM digital rights management technology allow users to concurrently 'authorize' up to five computers at the same time to play the games, EA states. "Users can then play the game on any authorized computer they choose. If your EA PC game was released after May 2008 and has a machine authorization limit, you can now manage your computer authorizations using EA De-Authorization Tools!"
The De-Authorization Management Tool scans your PC to automatically detect games released after May 2008 with machine authorization limits. You can then download the game-specific de-authorization tool(s) to de-authorize your PC and free up a slot. Alternately, you can skip the scanning and jump straight to the appropriate tool if you already know which games are eligible (see list here).
Thoughts on EA's new tool? Hit the jump and sound off.

Image Credit: EA
Links:
[1] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/one4yu2c
[2] http://activate.ea.com/deauthorize/
[3] http://activate.ea.com/deauthorize/gamesList.html
[4] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/ea_getting_slammed_spores_unntelligently_designed_drm
[5] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/998_you_dont_care_about_drm_just_ask_electronic_arts
[6] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/securom_drm_reaches_space_phase_decides_conquer_far_cry_2