Aggrieved consumers and gaming anarchists are venting their frustrations at the Digital Rights Management measures built into PC smash Spore and downloading the highly illegal pirated version instead. Naughty, naughty, very naughty…

Of course piracy is practically unavoidable these days - especially for such high profile titles as Spore. But it’s the sheer number of downloads that’s causing concern this time around, complemented by the notion that the publisher Electronic Arts has brought the whole problem on itself.

A couple of Spore factoids, then, and for reasons best known to themselves EA has decided that the game, once purchased, can only be installed three times per account. Furthermore each household may hold only one account per copy of the game. Those measures are horribly restrictive in their own right - and heaven help those who want to install the game on more than one household PC or set up multiple game profiles. However the whole issue is complicated by the fact that Spore is somewhat prone to crashes that require the software to be reinstalled. Put more simply it’s three strikes and you’re out, buddy. Or at least on the blower to EA customer services, desperately pleading for clemency.

The upshot of all this, then, is a huge demand for the pirated version of the game which has been hacked to remove such DRM restrictions. The scale of demand has surprised industry watchers too, with Forbes.com reporting 170,000 illegal downloads since the game launched at the beginning of the month and one specialist pundit being moved to comment that “The numbers are extraordinary”.

Meanwhile one cheeky post on a leading BitTorrent site sees the whole thing as an opportunity to stick it to the man: “…you are doing the right thing. You are letting EA know that people won't stand for their ridiculously draconian DRM viruses. You have the power to make this the most pirated game ever, to give corporate b*%$£@+s a virtual punch in the face.”

Well, we’re not sure we’d go that far and we certainly don’t advocate software piracy. Then again having had the office copy of Spore crash on our kick-ass gaming laptop - twice - we can understand where this viewpoint comes from. Be sure to have your say on the Blog we’re posting shortly.