cogadh: Even if the drive is crap, it appears that it is something about Starforce that brings that crap out in the drive, which I really blame on Starforce, not Lite-On, at this point.
Could be a combination of a poor drive and Starforce?
Coelocanth: I'll just say this: a source I trust has tested SecuROM and concluded that it can cause the PIO stepdown on some DVD drives.
Generally only happens when failing to authenticate a disk, no?
TheCheese33: While I do believe that some computers have experienced problems because of these copyright protection programs, I think the majority of these cases are fabricated. Pirates will do anything to justify downloading, and it can be hard to tell whether someone is lying when the lie exists in written form. You can never trust what you cannot see.
I'm not sure that's many people..I used to pirate and condemn DRM...but it was genuine. I still hate DRM but I don't pirate anymore. Unless the DRM is really bad (i.e. authenticate online periodically, limited installs with no revoke tool, etc), in which case I'll consider it and feel shitty about myself. Haha. :)