I've seen pathfinder books that do that, Paizo watermarks any books you 'purchase' from their store (including free ones). It includes your name and email address. Although you can backtrack who bought the books, it doesn't really stop any copying/sharing process.

Of course Pathfinder and D20 is based on OGL where most of the wanted content is available via the SRD anyways, making it almost moot. Besides a physical book copy usually is far better than a PDF, pre-rendering the PDF does make it more readable but it's still a pain to navigate on a tablet.

I think this is a really interesting problem thinking of GOG galaxy announcement. The video actually said something like 'if you want to play online multiplayer you must be connected' while at the same time saying that this will not be forced or required.

Before i'll ask my question, i believe there are quite a few games on GOG right now that come with cdkeys required for some online play, like age of wonder 3 or rise of the triad i recount as most recent cases but I remember there are many more.

So lets imagine a case: if Galaxy introduces some extra online features like multiplayer matchmaking, dedicated servers or collecting achievements, and
1) all these are optional on top of the game (single player is always there, direct-ip / LAN depend on the dev)
2) GOG version of the game would not have these features if Galaxy didn't exist
Is this a DRM? I mean, some of these features aren't even possible to be implemented without some identity to be tied to - like any good matchmaking, not even mentioning achievements on a profile. Also, i think most of us don't want to play with pirates or cheaters (and if a multiplayer service would be completely open while the game is fully DRM-free, there is hardly any control over that).

To me this is all blurry and I can't really see optional and DRM in one sentence. After all I remember using cdkeys to play Starcraft or Unreal Tournament 2004 online and I don't think anyone considered these a DRM back then.

You can do what you want with a DRM-free.
You can do only what the seller wants with a DRM.

I'm not saying that wasn't annoying, it was. I'm saying I don't consider it DRM, I call it copy protection, which was the term used back then. I see DRM and copy protection as significantly different, thus requiring two different terms.

Personally, it's DRM if it's intrusive/invasive/restrictive in an unreasonable way. Requiring the disc to be in the drive is not DRM to me, whereas software installed onto your computer that you cannot uninstall, or not easily uninstall, is. If it requires online activation or connection at any time, that also counts. If it requires downloads or updates to become usable, that counts. CD keys are a little annoying, but they're not DRM and not a big deal, to me. I would like it if games, on the case or in the description, would tell you up front: "Disc check," or "CD Key Required," or just up front "Securom." That way, I know what I'm getting into from the start, especially from companies who don't have a standard form of DRM, like I think that newer Stronghold games have either Steam or Securom but the Stronghold Collection has nothing, it even says it on the box. Kinda sad that the rule is, unless specified otherwise, expect DRM of some kind (generally intrusive). It's been forever since I've gotten new retail games on PC, maybe it's not the norm anymore.

haha does anyone remember Zak McKracken's drm ? if you got the exit codes wrong you would be thrown in a jail in the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ0UPj3BiKY

With copy protection it's an annoyance to try and back up your discs, as well as possibly making the game unplayable with missing manuals and other stuff even if you get a legal copy (perhaps second hand).

With DRM it can screw your system up, or outright refuse to start making the game unplayable...


I fail to see the difference, as they are both heavily restricting you or making the game unplayable outright, and with the same purposes in mind: Force the user to get a new legit copy.

Yes, they both do those things, in significantly different ways.

I don't like condensing terms for simplicity. Like how everything is an "app" now even if there were 10 different words back in the day for all the variations of software. Similarly combining copy protection and DRM into just DRM oversimplifies the different methods used.

How I see it is that DRM is an umbrella term, which have many different 'spokes'. One of these is copy protection, another is serial keys, yet another is online DRM and so on. So there is room for specific classifications, but the catch-all term is DRM.

Perhaps, but the result is the same. Same as stealing someone's identity from stealing your mail, and phishing it through fake-although-legitimate-looking website.

The FSF (Free Software Foundation) lumps it all together calling it Defective by Design, where they intentionally add roadblocks, bad code, spyware, malicious code. These are also closed proprietary systems where the developers don't give any trust to users, and only see them as a source of income rather than people.

On the hardware front... it depends. Some games use hardware authentication and that certainly counts as DRM. The mere fact that a game won't run say without an OS or a CPU is certainly far from DRM. But depends on the particular hardware of a particular machine? Yeah that certainly is DRM.

Probably the only DRM that's acceptable on a hardware level are graphical demos that are designed to work with a certain class of video cards. Since first they are free, and second it's a showcase not a purchasable product. Animusic PipeDream is one such example.

I was thinking, though I haven't actually seen evidence of this yet in games, is that a type of logic bomb that would prevent a game/product from working after, say, xxx number of days, would also count as DRM, even if it did not involve contact with the outside world/a third-party. So I'd amend my original definition/post to include that.

At the end of the day, I need to be able to use my purchases on a standalone offline computer, from now till perhaps 20-30 years from now, through reinstallations and reinstallations, just like I do now will my 20-30-year-old software (be it through original hardware, emulator, VM, etc.) Anything that restricts this capability would be DRM.

^^^^^^This

I more or less agree with you, but chances are pretty darn high we'll need community support and hacks/mods/applications to make them work anyway. At some point DRM is just a minor blip on the radar while tech-savvy people make sure old games work on new systems.