Due to negative reactions to the Starforce copy protection scheme in the SpellForce 2 demo, Aspyr stated that the North American release of the game will not have the Starforce copy protection implemented into the game. I imagine the recent incident I’ve posted about probably had something to do with it too. From Aspyr:

Aspyr Media is responsible for publishing the North American release of Spellforce 2. We wanted everyone to know that Starforce will *not* be included in the retail release of this game. Starforce is being used in the demo in cooperation with the European publishers of the title, JoWood Productions. This is to help prevent reverse engineering that could lead to our product being put up on illegal software networks. We apologize for any inconveniences Starforce may have caused and would again like to reassure everyone that we have chosen alternative copy protection software for our final release product. Thank you for your interest in Spellforce 2!