So when I bought the recent humble bundle I both got the option to download the drm free versions, and to redeem them on steam.

So... Does this mean I have two copies of the game? One to keep myself and one to send to a friend, or is this just two different options for me to download the game myself?

Humble Bundle FAQ:

"Can I sell or give away my keys?

Humble Bundle products are for personal use only. We do not allow selling or redistributing keys from your purchases. You can gift individual keys to friends using our gifting system, which you can read more about here.

You can also gift your friends whole bundles or Store items on our website by clicking the gift option at the end of your purchase."

I corresponded about this with Humble. Officially you get one copy, and shouldn't give away the Steam key and play the DRM-free copy. However, the interchange gave me the distinct impression that they don't much care if you do.

This is not quite correct.

You ave both options, does not mean you have two copies. You get one license for each game, and Humble kindly allows you the choice of DRM free and Steam. Taking one and giving away the other is an abuse of this system. (Duplication of licenses)

Secondly, if you want to be legal...., a Steam key is not the same as a game license, it is a right to use the Steam service to manage said license. This means that if you have take the DRM free, you have 'activated' or 'used' the game license you bought, and are therefore not at liberty to give it away also. However, since it is your license, you can still use it via Steam yourself if you so wish later.

If the Humble team really didn’t want to let the possibility to give away a Steam key while keeping the DRM-free installer, it would take only a couple lines of code to remove the DRM-free installer from your list of downloads once you gave away the key.
They didn’t do it. I think it gives a good hint on how they view the gifting of Steam keys while keeping the DRM-free installer to yourself.

If you don’t want to feel guilty about this, just give a little bit more money to Humble and/or the devs on your order than what you would have given if you didn’t plan to give the key to a friend.

I can very easily give you my gOg installers for all my games. Since gOg is not easily stopping this, it means they really want me to do so. Want some free games?

There are games on Humble Bundle that are DRM-free, games that are Steam-key'd, and games that are both. There bundles that include all DRM-free, all Steam-key'd, or all both, or a variety of the former two. With that aside...

If you bought a game that includes a DRM-free copy and a Steam key and activated that game to your own account (by not selecting to gift the bundle to anyone), you get a non-transferable DRM-free download and a Steam key that you can use. In this case, you are free to download the DRM-free game, and are free with what to do with the Steam key, including gifting it to a friend, selling it, activating it on your own Steam account, or whatever (technically, legal implications and whatnot is not my game).

If you decided to instead gift the bundle itself to a friend and you can get both Steam keys and a DRM-free version, the only difference to the above is that the receiver will be different (not you). Once the receiver activates the bundle link, they are entitled to a non-transferrable DRM-free download, and a Steam key that they can use freely, whether activating for themselves or a friend of theirs.

In my opinion, you should get the DRM-free version for yourself and dispose of the Steam key however you want. The DRM-free download in most cases won't be severely different than the Steam download asides from being DRM-free, and you get to stash the installer somewhere and whatnot. Honestly, it's a loss to use both the key and the download for yourself.

Of course I heard of special cases (clarification required) which breaks the above rules. For example, the release of "The Witness" on Humble Bundle offers a DRM-free version and a Steam version, BUT you are entitled to either the download or the Steam download; you can't have both as with other games.

which is, off course, a direct result from customers abusing the system, where they have free choice. this is again an example of why we can not have nice things. Sorry for going on about this, but this is one of the things people do, then complain later when they are clamped down on and can not longer do it.

Yes, it is a personal ethical question here (leaving aside the legal one, as stated above), but if people want to do so, then dont be surprised/complain later if/when more and more game will do as The Witness does.

While I disagree with your example (I would *never* give a GOG installer or a Humble DRM-free installer), I got your point… and still disagree with it ;)

DRM-free installers can’t be restricted, by the very definition of DRM, but the access to them could easily be. It is based on trust, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
On the other hand, Humble could easily disable the access to the DRM-free installers if you give away the associated Steam key, *without* letting go of the DRM-free principle in any way.

Just to be sure that we’re on the same page: I’m not saying Humble is encouraging you to give away you Steam keys while keeping the DRM-free installers. But they are not in any way discouraging you to do it, while it would have been super easy to put a restriction in place.

In my opinion they trust us to use this system without abusing it. Buying a whole bundle for 1$ to then trade the Steam keys and keep the DRM-free installers is abuse in my book, while buying the same bundle for 10~20$, give away a couple Steam keys to friends and keepind the DRM-free installers for yourself sounds like a respectful use of the possibilities Humble give us.

Of course, feel free to disagree, but keep in mind that you will have a hard time convincing me my ethics are broken ;)

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Just to be clear: I do not own, and will never own, a Steam account. So I have no use of the Steam keys for myself.

That is not correct. See my posted FAQ. Especially selling the key is forbidden.

In my eyes abusing the gifting system and duplicating the licenses is the main reason why we see less and less DRM-free games in bundles. Some years ago Steam key + DRM-free download was quite common for bundles, today we only get Steam keys most of the time (even when a DRM-free version exists).
It's still an abuse. If you absolutely want to give away the keys, why don't you buy two bundles (for $10 each) and not one (for $20). That way you have two licences and can do with them whatever you want.

Yes I do.

....

But it's torrentable anyway. Once upon a time, I googled and found 1200 GOG games ready to be torrented. I didn't torrent it, though, way too lazy.

I'd rather torrent the newest (and mostly greatest) games. That said, I pirated Life is Strange and will definitely buy that amazing game later when it's on sale. Without Torrent, I wouldn't have played it and wouldn't buy it. So yeah, torrent is good for LiS in this case.

Maybe to you, obviously not to me ;)
Sadly we don’t have any clear position of the Humble team themselves on that.

I already get two licences when buying one bundle. One I accept (the DRM-free one) and one I reject (the Steam one). The question is more: are these licences tied a to a single user?
And I don’t like the idea of buying the same bundle twice instead of buying it once at twice the intended price, because the second option give more money to people I don’t want to (banks and affiliated) and less to people I give it to gladly (Humble and devs).

It was shit. I wanted to give a game to a friend, however there was an unrelated dlc for a different game attached. He couldn't redeem the key due to not owning that game.