Ars puts Spore DRM to the test—with a surprising result relates the
experience of Ars Technica with the controversial digital rights management in
Spore. Their findings include that the life simulation can be installed
an unlimited number of times on the same computer, that the game cannot be
installed if the authentication servers are down for any reason, and most
interestingly, they found a very simple way to get EA to authorize further
installations by claiming they had rented the game. The catch there is that
they were issued a new authentication code that rendered installations with the
original authentication code invalid.