Eh, there's a lot of overlap, but they're not identical.

For example, in the late 1980s, various games came with paper products (journal, code wheels) that you needed to have to play the game. However the game program itself took no measures to prevent normal duplication.

This definitely falls into "Copy Protection", because while you could back it up or use it on another computer without trouble, you couldn't easily give it to a friend.

It doesn't, however, fall into "DRM", because there was no code preventing you from exercising your rights to time-shift, backup, etc the software. Moreover you could resell the software completely reasonably with transferring the manual/codewheel to the buyer.

Good luck with that, I'm still waiting for a response.



Still no response to my support ticket after nearly 3 weeks. If any blues are passing, the ticket number is X65ILLXP. I suspect my message was read and ignored.

Quite often copy protection is heavily tied to being able to use the software. Games requiring the original CD inserted in the drive so you could run the game... which made sense originally when there was limited amount of hard drive space (you had maybe a 400Mb hard drive, there wasn't space most of the time to copy a full CD to the drive).

At this point though i pretty much lump them together too; Although they target different ways to prevent you from doing something you should be allowed to do. On the other hand the online component of games is drifting more to DRM than the MP it offers (as Ubisoft has hinted at us already).

Just because you feel that way doesn't make you right, because they are intrinsically different things. See jsrodman's post.

One refuses to work if you don't have the disc in with a protected signature. The other won't let you play unless you can verify your signature via online connection...

These are different... how? Neither let you enjoy the game unhindered (even if you successfully copy it).

One can be revoked/broken at any time for any reason with no actions on your part.

The other, while still vile and irritating, is at least under your control as to when it breaks or not; it's usually *the user's* fault if you lose access to the product.

I really do need to write a FAQ somewhere sometime about it...

I agree with you about that distinction. However, that doesn't altar my opinion that they're "the same". They are both forms of "managing the rights of the rightsholder", which is exactly what DRM means: Digital Rights Management. Granted, there are "DRM-lite" methods, such as you described - but they are still DRM at their core.

Maybe instead of stating:

COPY PROTECTION == DRM

I should put it as:

COPY PROTECTION <= DRM, is in "copy protection is a subset of the larger overall DRM universe"

But basically, as rtcvb32 says, I just "lump them together", hence my first "equation". :)


I'm not claiming to be right. I stated an opinion (I used of "to me" to indicate that). I still have that opinion too. To me, Copy Protection and DRM are effectively on the same <i>Number line</i>. They just occupy different lengths and overall positions.

Basically, they're both the same, just controlling things to a different degree. Like a 1-story building is the same as a skyscraper in many ways. Same in enough respects to call them both buildings, although they do have many differences. That's what Copy Protection == DRM is to me.

Hope that clarifies my opinion a little. Not surprised if it doesn't lol..

Not sure if you've seen <i>this</i>, but maybe you can inquire about it without your ticket getting thrown to the back of the line..

You sound like the Elite Dangerous fanboys who claimed that DRM free game just means a physical disk without copy protection ;)

Anyway, obviously copy protection is a method of DRM when the information trying to be copied is digital information, not paper like the strawman jsrodman tried to pull.

Stop saying "obviously" because it's not. It's simply not true. No amount of repeating the falsehood will make it true. I won't restate the facts again here. There are some above, and there are plenty of other threads and sources. Copy protection is LIKE DRM. It's also irritating. But it's NOT DRM.

Both actually. Errors on discs occur (due to wear & tear), drives also break down so the game could just refuse to load because there was enough wear and tear. Don't tell me if it requires a CD check on a game and the drive of your computer fails that the game isn't going to work? Not to mention some games some games tie the drive to it's protection in some hidden register/file so if you swap to another drive it won't work (without forcibly renaming the drive at least).

Don't forget the whole purpose of Copy Protection is actually the same as DRM, the only difference is when it was released based on the technology of the time. It would have been a huge annoyance especially to justify long distance calls so dialing up to a BBS to verify a copy of your game/software wouldn't have worked, but if they forced checks on the internet for games written in the 80's obviously it would have seemed stupid because no one had access to it so the system would have been broken the day it shipped for at least 15 years! (assuming they had the full TCP/IP protocol and knew what their server ID's would be 15 years from release). Obviously that wouldn't have worked :P

I really enjoyed LGR's video because he lumped the two together during his video because they were effectively the same thing. Not to mention if you got DRM/Copy Protection on a disk, the disk tended to go bad easily forcing you to buy another at full price. Quite annoying... But i'm sure the companies selling the software were making a steal (at least for MUST-HAVE software).

+1

My request for a refund was processed within days based on the OPs revelations that Gog was factually selling a game with DRM, admitted it was knowingly selling a DRM'ed game after the fact and the OP has still not been given a refund.

This is really shitty Gog.

Sort it out.

edit spelling

Perhaps more like the early child of DRM that is less sophisticated... But definitely in the same family/group.

Stop misleading. I never said that. Copy protection for digital information is a DRM method. That is all.

You should definitely check your facts.

My suspicion is that I pissed off the support person by making this thread and so they ignored my reply... I've sent another reply now. I'm not worried about being bumped to the back of the queue as it seemed like I wasn't even in the queue any more.