Go DRM Free

The advent of the internet allowed for this nifty little thing called digital distribution. No longer do you have to go to the store to buy some music or a movie or a video game. Now anyone can simply get on an internet connected device and buy their music or movies or video games online. No need to go to the store, just make sure you know your credit card number, the expiration date, and the three digits on the back.

But there is a noticeable difference between going to the store and buying something physical when compared to buying something digital. Ask yourself this: Do you really own it? I think looking at some examples might help. Lets say you’ve bought some music from Bandcamp and downloaded the flacs. Do you own those? Sure. What about buying and playing some games from Steam. Do you own those? Probably. How about streaming a movie off Netflix. Is there any ownership there? Maybe.

If you’re a the average person, you might say you own the music and games, but not the movie. After all, streaming is a service. You don’t buy the movies with streaming, you just pay to access a collection of them. You don’t pay, you don’t access. And I would agree with that. Subscription services are not the same as owning. But what about the music? Purchasing and downloading the flacs is pretty cut and dry. They’re just some file. Listen to them on your computer, laptop, phone, whatever. There is no music police determining what you can and can’t do with them.

So, what about Steam then? You bought the game, the files are on your computer, so logically you would own it, right? I’d argue no. Why? Because of a little something called licensing. You see, companies don’t like it when they lose control of their products. Most companies have an image to uphold, and allowing others to do as they please with it could ruin it. Especially with digital goods. Whats stopping someone from modifying it to make the brand seem worse? Or what if someone just redistributes it for free, completely cutting the company out of the picture? If you were some CEO, this might keep you up at night, but luckily for our CEOs, they have some solution. Lets take a look at the Steam Subscriber Agreement. I’ve prepared a section for your reading pleasure.

The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.

I think this is pretty explicit, but according to Steam, you do not own the games you buy. You simply own a license that allows you access to the games, and even then, that license has stipulations on what you can do with the games. And if you in some way violate these licenses, the companies have every right to take them away, removing access to the games you thought you “owned”. The games you spent your hard earned money on.

Now if you read around, you’ll see that the average person is not likely to break these terms. But that isn’t where you should worry, no. Rather it has more to do with the thing companies use to enforce their terms, DRM. DRM, or digital rights management, is software designed to limit what you can do with what you purchase digitally, at least in our case. Steam is effectively DRM. Have you ever tried running a Steam game without having Steam open? It just launches it. But if you try to kill the Steam process after the game is started up, the game also stops running. Whats up with that? Or have you ever tried to play some single player game, only for it to require you to be online to play? This is DRM, and its there to make your life worse. I want to get into a few more common examples of how it impacts the average user. With games bought on Steam, you can’t share them with friends or resell them to someone else after purchase. You can do this with physical games. Games with DRM run worse than those without. Many printers don’t allow third party ink cartridges, only the ones from the brand that makes them. This serves no purpose other than to limit the options of the consumer. Apple prevents users from repairing their iPhones by detecting and disabling any parts that have been replaced or repaired by anyone other than Apple. They won’t let you use the device you own the way you want to.

If you didn’t agree before, I hope you can agree now that DRM is bad. But how do we get things without DRM? Piracy seems to be the obvious choice for digital content, but that is not a good option. People still deserve to get paid for the work they do, pirating deprives artists and creators of that. Luckily, there are many popular market places where you can support developers and still get DRM free copies. I’ve already mentioned one, Bandcamp. They are a great place to get music and support artists directly, or they at least used to be. There have been some recent developments that make its future a bit questionable as a good place to buy music, so I’d do some research before considering making a purchase there. For the gamers among us, I recommend checking out Good Old Games for your next purchase. Contrary to their name, they offer many of the latest and popular games along side many older titles and indie gems.

I think the one thing that is a bit intimidating is the cost. The idea of spending so much money to convert your entire current collection to DRM free is immense. And even then, comparing DRM-free purchases to the relatively low monthly fee of streaming services is also a tough decision. For some people, services like Spotify, Neftlix, or Game Pass might be worthwhile. And you know what, that is fair. For most people, I think that one thing matters the most: they get to enjoy their content for a reasonable price. My main goal with this post was to encourage you to consider the ethics about the content you consumer. Are you buying into something that limits your freedoms or respects them? Remember, the power we have as consumers lies in our wallets, so spend wisely.