Well it's just to easy to copy the CD's if there wasn't any copy protection. Just borrow the CD's from a friend, install it and you're done. Because yes, securerom v2.9 is a copy protection. (Note that there are games that don't require the CD-rom ever once they are installed)
I'm positive they don't have a deal, alcohol just keeps up with the protection. While publishers will always try to protect their games, people will always find a way to circumvent it. I'm not sure of the legallity, but I think you can do almost anything with your own copy, save things that put it in other people's hands (like hosting the images, giving discs with the game on it, etc). But the license agreement sheds more light on this.

Copy protection of this is a bit of a necessary evil: you don't want much piracy, so you put some mechanism in play that unfortunately give buyers a bit more trouble. I like the protection, at least CA will get more money (because of a bit less piracy) and that's good to me, since they can go on and make more games