Yeah, usually. Aside from games in the past few years, that's definitely true. And SecuROM is an entire range of tools for DRM and such. At the most basic level, yes, it just checks to see if the disc is legitimate. They also do online activations where you can install the software on x number of computers before it tells you that you've used it too many times, which is the one that people bitch and moan about all the time.