GOG Launches FCKDRM To Promote DRM-Free Art and Media (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: GOG, the digital distribution platform for DRM-free video games and video, has launched a new initiative designed to promote content without embedded DRM. The platform aims to promote GOG and other companies with a similar ethos, including those offering DRM-free music, books, and video. "DRM-free approach in games has been at the heart of GOG.COM from day one. We strongly believe that if you buy a game, it should be yours, and you can play it the way it's convenient for you, and not how others want you to use it," GOG said in a statement. While Digital Rights Management is seen by many companies as necessary to prevent piracy, GOG believes that its restrictions are anti-consumer and run counter to freedoms that should exist alongside content ownership.

Comments

Moving Against the Tide

[mentil]

Given the broad move towards content streaming, and Kindle Unlimited, I'm not hopeful that people will increasingly move towards ownership of what media they consume. Noone cares about DRM of Netflix streams because they accept that they can't do whatever they want with the stream. Steam now allows refunds, so if the DRM prevents the game from working, you can refund it. Legally it's the EULA and not the DRM that prevents you from owning your media, and that practice is a larger problem that doesn't seem to be going anywhere either.

Re: Moving Against the Tide

[ledow]

Have you ever tried to make a game and sell it? Only the other day on here I was reading an article about "review copies " that were basically scammed out of games-makers. Something that DRM could stop.

There are numerous instances of games-makers tracking pirated downloads, and releasing games without DRM to see how they fare. Piracy is rampant. Even for a small indie, it's a problem... I can't imagine how you think that will scale for a profit-seeking business.

That's not to say that all DRM measures are valid. Some go too far. But DRM is a necessary part of consuming modern life. Out of all the "DRM free" stores (e.g. app-stores, etc.) out there, how many are bundled on phones or computers in preference to the DRMd ones? None.

There's *always* a way to run non-DRMd software, but the equivalents don't always exist in the way you'd like.

I'm massively pro-open-source (which basically makes DRM moot). But I can't ever justify having a huge, successful, idea and then trying to monetise it... at the point you monetise DRM makes sense and nothing else does. I've seriously considered my "big project" games that I've worked on for years and I can't picture how you'd get anything back if they were non-DRM or open-source. It just wouldn't happen.

With money comes DRM, that's the problem. I'm happy to give away much of the fruits of my labour for free, I do so personally and professionally all the time. But I can't ever imagine a commercially successful game without DRM of some kind (even if it was just "online account necessary").

I'm a pragmatists and a realist. The fact is, at the hourly rates that my free time costs me (i.e. how much do I have to work to get X amount of free time, and how much would that cost charged to a client) it's literally NOT worth me trying to bypass or avoid DRM in order to watch a movie, play a game, read a book or anything else. Especially not when the DRM doesn't interfere with the ordinary usage of said product.

In the same way, I'm sure I can make my own soap, farm my own bees, knead my own bread. But the effort, time and money involved is much better spent on "big corporate" products, and then getting all that free time back to do things more entertaining. Like watch a movie.

While your attitude to DRM is "fuck you", you're never going to win that argument. Because everyone else on the planet has bigger things to do, and that their game only runs on 3 computers at once is right as the very bottom of the pile of things they give a shit about. You can't instigate change that way.

I'd much more happily give MONTHS of my time to initiatives that make open-source games, libraries, cross-platform ports, etc. than try to convince an ordinary person that DRM is "a bad thing". Even though it's present in everything from coffee-makers to computer games, car tires to 3D printers.

Because, at the end of the day, if you want a reliable commercial product it needs a revenue stream to sustain itself. DRM is a guardian of that revenue stream (though far from perfect, yes, any DRM is breakable and you can't make one that isn't, but that's not the point - like the BluRay AACS stuff... it's about making it difficult to do things in a timely manner at release, not be impenetrable... and lots of companies remove DRM from products after that initial period).

If you think this is bad now, then it's only EVER going to get worse, whether or not I support it. But you're fighting the wrong battle. "No DRM" is stupid. What you need is "Reasonable DRM" instead. Lumping it all together just teaches companies that they might as well go the whole hog as they've gonna catch flak for it anyway.

I find Steam DRM (not the additional stuff that some companies put on their Steam offerings) perfectly reasonable. It's never hindered me in any way. It likely never will. I accept it as a reasonable compromise and would protest if it get too strict. But I also accept that "No DRM" just means rampant casual piracy (no matter what peopl

I will never forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

I purchased Carmageddon TD2000. It was an expensive game when it came out. I had a pretty beefy computer back then (for the day) but the game play was so laggy that it was basically unplayable. It was so unplayable that I read the entire manual. I noticed something that stuck a note in my mind. There were two lines (don't remember the exact words so I am paraphrasing it) that were at odds of each other. The first said that the game is copy protected. The second said that you are entitled to make one back up copy of the game. They had an email address so I emailed them about it. I asked since I am allowed to make 1 legal backup copy, but the game is copy protected, how do I do it. I was shocked when I got a reply from them. It only had two words in the email (other than my quoted text). It just simply said "You dont". Pretty much summed up what corporate thinks of the people who buy their games....

Re:DRM doesn't work

[Z80a]

There is a piece of software that harms piracy.
It's called steam/gog and it does work by making the original games as good or better than the pirate version by allowing you to get it as easily as the pirate version and having dedicated servers etc..
But when you put DRM in a game, you make the pirate game better again, and you really don't want to make the pirate game better than the original game.