I think EA needs to learn a lesson over this... I have written my congressmen the following and suggest you do the same:
Companies requiring online activation and downloads need to have guidelines and regulations restricting this to protect consumers, those who vote for you. The legislation should read as follows:
The following regulations shall govern online activation of software and hardware devices and their use. The following policies acnowledge the measures are anti-piracty and a benefit only to the company, offering nothing to the consumer. As such the company must take reasonable action to support the consumer purchasing such restriced software at no benefit to themselves.
- Any online activation or online to play for a product not discounted well below standard pricing for unrestrcited products for this consumer inconvienience and restriction will come with it an assumed SLA of 99.99% up time as is considered industry standard for such services that charge. Anything less will be refunded to customers as part of this assumed SLA purchase agreement at an industry standard rate per minute of down time.
- Uppon the company deciding to disable access to these activation servers, or who falls below 95% up time, they must first release, and make publicly accessable and easily found, a patch which removes all online requirements for thier software.
- Above patch must also work on downloaded installers to allow software to be re-installed
- As the requirement of online activation is a burden on the consumer at no benefit to them, company will be required to clearly label all software as "online activation and monitoring of use required, you are leasing this product and will not own it" if any component, patch or add-on requires this. This label must be clear and ledgabe from a distance on the front of the box or web-page selling the product.
- Any software requiring online activation may not use the word "buy" in any form when purchasing it. Such will be considered false advertising as the software is not being purchased, but leased. If the word "buy" is found anywhere in the purchase process or advertising the company must offer all items purchased, including online and downloadable content, free of such restrictions and fully transferrable as is expected of a purchase for all customers who might have reasonbly made thier purchasing decition based on the false advertising.
- Company requiring online activation must clearly state in all advertisement and purcase mediums the length of lease and such time shall be considered the term of SLA mentioned above. The advertised timeframe of lease shall be the implied commitment to SLA mentioned in section 4.
- Any confusion over this timeframe or lack of clear labeling understood by at least 95% of those looking at the container or page, shall require imediate release of disabling patch.
- All SLA commitments begin at the time of purchase. The company must stop selling their product to begin the time frame of end of support, or offer a working patch to remove it. The patch shall be supported for an amount of time equal to the orriginal SLA.
- Any company listed on the product packaging, website or involved in the distribution in any way may be held liable for these requirements to the extent they made any profit from the sale. Indemnity agreements may not include requirement of arbitration nor automatic class actions.
Unless we stand up for ourselves as a community, companies will keep getting away with this BS. Look at what a community uprising did to Microsoft on this front.
