Securom is the reason why I have had to download the cracked Kingdoms executable, precisely for the reason that Foot says. I have to use FileMon occasionally, and Kingdoms refuses to load if it has been run at any time since last boot. When I took it up with Securom, they said I should reboot before playing. Having to reboot just to play is not good enough for me, and it has no effect at all on pirates. Securom/Starforce has only ever helped annoy paying customers. Those who are unwilling to pay for the game will continue unperturbed.

I think the only copy protection scheme that has ever worked is Stardock's. Which is no protection at all, until you download patches that improve the game immensely. Only those with a legal purchase can download those updates, it's painless and effective. Those who don't care about the game enough to pay to get those are probably the same people who would not pay to get the game in the first place, so no money is lost.