'DRM is DRM' is not a definition and I didn't suggest that it was in my post. In fact, I provided a very clear definition further down of what I consider to be DRM.

What is your definition of DRM then, Gudadantza? Please give me a clear definition.

I believe that for a lot of people the de facto definition of DRM can be expressed through a negative statement: "If it is sold on GOG, it is not DRM". So many people have stated, publicly or to themselves, that "as soon as DRM appears on GOG, I'm gone", yet they obviously cannot abide by it, since there is really no comparable alternative to GOG, and abandoning GOG is almost the same as abandoning DRM-free videogaming, so their solution is to follow GOG's lead and shift their line whenever GOG does so. Some even go as far as rewriting history to convince themselves that nothing has changed and they and GOG are still the same as they were back in 2008. All in order to avoid the terrifying prospect --- and it is truly terrifying, I'm not joking, I've been there myself --- of not being able to buy "one more game".

I suspect the same, which is why I know they will dodge. They want to leave their definition of DRM vague, for the same reasons that GOG do: so they can make it up as they go along and pull back the line whenever it suits them. Ultimately, these people are not primarily concerned about DRM, they are die-hard GOG fanboys who are willing to do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to defend their 'chosen store' against any detractors.

DRM is the technical control of the digital property, it can be even a physical control device.
A control of a license, an always online check for a game. a CD check, a number of limited licenses control, or the control / limiting of the real game property itself. etc...etc... If a tool like a launcher enables some kind of those things it is probably DRM. If a tool does not enable any of those things it is not DRM.
Nobody could call the Itch.io launcher DRM, or it could? I believe some of you consider it in that way.

Yes it is, and if you look at Gog sentence that's also what they said, there is no absolute rule to determine what is "optional" or not, hence why their explanation was very vague and hence why we have some fringe cases like Goblin Inc. and Absolver.

As I said multiple time : if I can copy (or install) a game to an offline computer and play the single player part of it without issue then it's DRM-free as far as I am concerned.

And yes I don't care if it's installed via installers or downloaded using a client (that's why I consider "Enslaved - Odyssey to the West" on Steam as being DRM-free). And when I say "single player part" I also mean that I don't care about "optional" parts and by optional I mean skins, extra DLC'ish weapons or other stuff that I consider insignificant enough.

Of course the line is purely subjective but to give you example I don't care about the gold weapons in Dying Light at all as they are not needed for anything, but on the other side the online "Dynasty Weapons" of Heroes of Might and Magic 6 (if this game is ever released here) are something less acceptable as they are not just some novelty but directly impact gameplay making the game nearly impossible at higher difficulty level if you don't use them.

You may have missed GOG's new definition, spelled out by a GOG staff member yesterday, and quoted in the OP:
"as long as these additional features and rewards do not affect the single-player offline experience in a major way, we believe that the developers and publishers should be free to design and sell their games in a way they choose".

I know what DRM-free means to me but GOG really needs a clear definition in a F.A.Q. or something. By saying companies should be able to sell things as they wish (or whatever the phrasing) they're allowing each release to self-define what qualifies as DRM. That's actually perfectly okay with me but GOG shouldn't be suggesting in any way that they're a DRM-free store if they won't give consumers a blanket definition of what to expect.

I mostly play single player. For whatever reasons I tend to prefer it. So I rarely touch the multi-player component. I do care about the most complete version of a game so I usually want all DLC (though I care less about cosmetic DLC). I may not care about multi-player but the game isn't being sold to just me. Someone else might focus more of another aspect of the game I never touch. We should have a solid understanding of what we're purchasing no matter how we plan to use it. At the moment GOG seems to have decided that isn't something they need to have a hand in. Which again makes me question what differentiates GOG as a storefront. Why choose GOG over another store? The answer seemed clearer in the past then it does now.

Since I cared about the Devotion issue and censorship in general I can't help but mention how bizarre I find all this. GOG will listen to "many gamers" ( I don't buy that but let's assume it's true) about removing a game over content concerns, but not to many gamers who want clear guidelines on what constitutes DRM? When something upsets "many gamers" they take the reigns and decline to release a product, but when many gamers inquire about DRM it's each publisher's personal choice?

I understand CDRP is a business and not a charity. They are the ones who seem confused lately . I'm not looking for free, and I don't give away copies of anything I've ever purchased. Iwant to give you my dollars for Devotion but you pulled it. I want to buy DRM-free software but you can't guarantee what's in the box. As a business, don't you want to run things in a way to continue having my business?

Thanks. I appreciate both of you providing your definitions of what you consider DRM. That is helpful. So, it seems your definitions are different to mine, which is why we have a disagreement (because mine is stricter). Please note that your definitions of DRM are no more 'correct' than mine is (except to you). There is no globally agreed definition of what DRM is.

Therefore, I think all we can do is agree to disagree. GOG have crossed my line, but they haven't crossed yours (yet). Which is why I am boycotting and you are not. If they haven't crossed your line and you don't want to join the boycott, then fair enough. But please consider that not everyone is using the same definition of DRM that you are and for some, that line has already been crossed, where they have had enough.

Also, bear in mind that the boycott is not just about the perceived encroachment of DRM, it is also about censorship over Devotion, the continued pushing of Galaxy, the lack of maintenance of the offline installers and the shady deal with Epic. If you don't think any of those are issues worth protesting about, that's fair enough. But, some people do.

Well written. Now, if only someone from GOG were to bother to read it.

I totally agree. If they are claiming to be a 'DRM-free' store, then they should provide a clear definition of what DRM-free means to them. And they should be willing to show some conviction based on that definition and enforce that standard on their store. It's the only way we can be confident there will be no more slippage.

'Why choose GOG over another store?' It's a good question and I am also more confused about what really differentiates them from the competition these days. Those differentiating factors have been falling away over the years: no client, regional pricing, only complete games (no DLC) ...

I was referring to the quoted addition/explanation of 'DRM free' from GOGs Absolver page.
I am also unsure whether your quote is supposed to be an admission of accepting "low amounts" of DRM or something else (like you imply - a redefinition of 'DRM free').

I does look like an admission to me.

I dont agree that steam always has been 100 % honest and not been lying to custommers
they have claimed that you wont loose acess to your games on several occassions but i have experienced loosing acess to the games a couple of times already.
They also didnt use terms such as lifetime rentals or permission/licence to use a game at first
Both are in my eyes two signs of not beeing 100 % honest

A license is a right to use a property or intellectual property that belongs to somebody else. When you read "this software is licensed, not sold" in a software EULA, whether it's for an OS like Windows 10, a game, or an application, "this software" refers to the software Intellectual Property and not the copy of that intellectual property that you've purchased via a software license. Software licenses and the instances of a software's intellectual property that they represent are indeed and obviously sold. Both of the following phrases are simultaneously true: This software (IP) is licensed, not sold; This software (instance / license) is sold, not licensed or leased.


All the mass-produced items you've bought, including your clothing, your vehicles, your TV, your computer hardware, are licensed instances of the intellectual property (IP) for those things. When you purchase any of those things, you aren't purchasing the intellectual property (IP) and so you don't become entitled to mass-produce, to control marketing, to receive profits from exploiting the brands of any of those things, and you don't gain any ownership of the patents for the patented technology in those things. But you are purchasing a one-off copy of the IP of those things, and upon the point of sale of the instances of those IPs there is a transfer of ownership over those instances and you become the sole owner of that instance of that IP. This is exactly the same with software as it is with physical goods - you own your non-reproduceable instance and have full property rights over it.


In law, there are Goods and there are Services, and every thing you pay for is classified into one of these two categories. A service is a temporal and transient action (like a car wash, meal delivery, movie streaming) that may or may not deliver a good. A good, by definition, is an item and piece of property that undergoes a transfer of ownership upon its point of sale, from the seller to the buyer, granting the buyer full property rights over that purchased item, and removing all rights from the seller over the item which they sold. As of February 2020, there are 88 countries signatory to the Nice Agreement treaty. The Nice Agreement (called such because it was signed in Nice, France, in 1957), is a multinational treaty that contains the International Classification of Goods and Services (also known as the Nice Classification), and that treaty assigns the classification of goods and services for its signatory countries under the jurisdiction and authority of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The World Intellectual Property Organization classifies all software as Class 9 goods. An elaborate look at what goods are under law is in this post.


There are perpetual software licenses and there are subscription software licenses. A perpetual license is non-exhaustive, meaning that the right it grants is eternal, forever-lasting, and never expires. A subscription license is a duration-limited right to access a software or service. All the most common software including games, OSes, and programs are perpetual licenses. Some games that are sold via perpetual licenses, like MMOs, require an additional service subscription to use the base software with a publisher's own servers, with the software not being functional on its own due to the servers handling the game world's AI and other systems. Steam itself is a subscription service, but the games sold through Steam are perpetual licensed software and goods. The Steam service is used to purchase and deliver goods.


A perpetual license is a good and a product, and whenever a perpetual license is sold it undergoes transfer of ownership upon the point of sale. Whoever owns a perpetual license owns the instance of software it grants a right to use the intellectual property (IP) of. After the transfer of ownership of a perpetual licensed software, the seller of the license no longer holds any rightful say over anything regarding that non-reproduceable instance of software represented by its perpetual license. This legal fact is not always honoured by perpetual license software sellers (for example, Microsoft with Windows 10 automatic updates and data-harvesting) and it can take lawsuits to force software companies to comply with their legal and moral obligations and to respect the property of others and not violate that property, including software, system, and data property.


EULAs are not laws but are subject to laws. And corporations do not possess law-making powers. Many EULAs are not written by legal experts but by people who just see the formats of previous EULAs and make assumptions from seeing those about what the nature of an EULA is, and then just copy and paste the terms they like the sound of from other EULAs. And many EULAs even from large companies like Microsoft (for example, the Windows 10 EULA) contain made-up and non legally-enforceable stuff in them. Considering that it is even unreasonable to expect people to read EULAs, there is a question of how could an EULA-based argument pass the "reasonable person" or "the man on the Clapham omnibus" legal tests. An EULA can often be nothing more than an extremely long-winded and self-aggrandizing equivalent of printing a © symbol, with the parts of it that reach beyond the meaning of a © symbol being invalid.


EULAs are also used as a tool of manipulation to psychologically ward off potential challenges and to provoke the type of customer behaviour a publisher wishes there to be, by claiming, or, by phrasing things (without outright saying them) in a way that suggests publisher rights and powers beyond what actually exist. There are countless examples of this, but one very familiar one is "this software is licensed, not sold", which plays on the semantics of "software".


An EULA and a Terms of Service (ToS) are not the same thing. An EULA purports to apply to a good you've purchased and own, to impose conditions on how you use your own property, and so is invalid. A Terms of Service applies to a service, owned by someone else, that you use via a subscription license or a free account, and so a ToS can be valid. Someone else isn't entitled to set terms for your usage of your own property, which is what an EULA tries to do. But they are entitled to set the terms over your usage of their own property, which is what a ToS aims to do. However, a ToS can still be invalid depending on what terms it claims. And if a ToS tries to add in conditions about your usage of your own property, such as software you've purchased or perhaps modification of your hardware, then at least that part of it is invalid. Just as how some perpetual-license software might include a component that requires a subscription-license for its typical usage (as with some MMOs), a software good that you own might have an online component to which a ToS applies for the sake of accessing 3rd-party servers, with those 3rd-party servers not being a part of your ownership of the base game software you purchased.


Ownership over a thing is what establishes one's decision-making authority over the thing. To sell something is to relinquish it as one's property and to relinquish all of one's decision-making authority over that thing and to transfer decision-making authority over that thing to the person who bought the thing. Anything sold via a perpetual (meaning non-exhausting, eternal, lasting-forever) license is a product that becomes the sole possession of whoever purchases it, and upon its purchase all property rights including all decision-making authority transfer from the seller to the purchaser. And then the seller no longer has any rightful say over anything regarding that non-reproduceable instance of software represented by its perpetual license.

Addittional Post

The European Union's highest court, the Court of Justice, has ruled that software, whether sold via a license and whether physically or digitally-distributed, represents a good rather than a service, and that any purchaser of a perpetually-licensed software becomes the exclusive owner over that instance of the software, just as when they purchase any physical good. Most, if not all of the European Union's countries (including the UK) are also signatories to the Nice Agreement, making software in those countries goods. The EU Court of Justice has specifically ruled [archive link], "the copyright holder transfers the right of ownership of the copy of the computer program to his customer".


In a 2016 Australian case regarding Valve's refund policy for Steam, Australia's High Court carefully examined whether computer games sold through Steam are goods (and therefore property and consumer rights apply to them) or services (and therefore no property or consumer rights or apply to them), and concluded that they are fully goods, and that Valve doesn't merely sell a license to use the software, but in-fact sells the software itself, and that whoever buys a game from Steam becomes owner of the software that they purchased. Australia's High Court concluded: "Each of Valve’s challenges to the applicability of the Australian Consumer Law fails. The conflict of laws provisions in the Australian Consumer Law did not essentially carve out an exception for conduct by foreign corporations like Valve governed by a different contractual proper law. Valve supplied goods (which are defined as including computer software)."


In Canada, pre-2019, the government of Canada declared as goods in its Goods and Services Manual (2018 edition), "all computer programs and software regardless of recording media or means of dissemination, that is, software recorded on magnetic media or downloaded from a remote computer network". Since June 2019, Canada has been another signatory to the Nice Agreement, putting its classification of goods and services under the administration of the World Intellectual Property Organization. As a good, software is therefore a private property that is sold and purchased, and which is owned by its purchasers. In 2016, Canada's Federal Court ruled [2] that software licenses are property that transfers to the purchaser at the time of purchase.