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DRM considered harmful | 189 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
DRM considered harmful
Authored by: bilateralrope on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 05:45 PM EDT
> However illogical that is, publishers like DRM.

When you call DRM illogical, you need to consider that there are two motivations
for DRM:
1 - To prevent piracy. DRM doesn't work here. So anti-piracy DRM is illogical.
2 - To prevent second hand sales. A second hand buyer is someone willing to pay
for the game, but no money goes into the publishers/developers pocket. By making
DRM that the second hand buyer needs to crack*, it makes the sale look too much
like piracy for them to accept. So they don't buy second hand. Add digital
distribution and steep discounts to the mix, and they will still buy the game
and send money to the publishers/developers. So, while distasteful, DRM to block
second hand sales is logical (unless the EU forces second hand video game
sales).

*The DRM only needs to be strong enough that the second hand buyer knows that
they are cracking it.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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