[shmerl]

> And from a business point of view, it can be really hard to make that case.

Not really. DRM usage has nothing to do with (honest) business cases. They are all crooked or Lysenkoist in nature (i.e. based on completely wrong / ignorant reasoning).

Also, I think you are mixing up DRM with security. DRM is the opposite of it. DRM can employ encryption, but its purpose is not to secure your system, but to police you, and because of that it actually compromises your security.

> apps and games increasingly rely on server backends to work properly.

Many multiplayer games surely do. That's why it's good then the server is open source. This way it indeed can be preserved. Otherwise, it will be lost as soon as the servers will go bust. Another option is to provide the server component with the game, to allow running it as server instance. Lot's of older games did that, allowing running LAN / WAN multiplayer without using dedicated servers. It's less common these days. Either developers cut corners with implementing it, or server components got too heavy, not sure.

Making single-player games rely on some remote services as a hard requirement is a very poor taste. Same if they have multiplayer component. It should be optional and single-player part should function without it.

[LeifCarrotson]

> DRM usage has nothing to do with (honest) business cases. They are all crooked or Lysenkoist in nature (i.e. based on completely wrong / ignorant reasoning).

Can you explain this? The argument and terminology are unfamiliar to me. Wikipedia says:

> Lysenkoism is also used metaphorically to describe the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives.

The goal of DRM is, ostensibly, to be paid for the hard work of creating something that is easy to duplicate after being created. That's a reasonable goal, but really hard to do when the software is executing on a machine in the control of the user. Requiring a remote server is a logical way to accomplish that goal, with unfortunate side effects when that server is inaccessible.

What part of this logic is crooked or Lysenkoism?

[shmerl]

Cory Doctorow was the one who compared DRM usage to Lysenkoism. See his explanation here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blog...

In short, it means that logic of DRM usage is completely invalid and based on false premises (when someone tries to justify it using reasons like increasing sales for example and such).

There can be other possible reasons for DRM usage, which aren't Lyseknoist, but simply crooked. I.e. for instance, covering up incompetence, competition exclusion, standards poisoning, undemocratic policy making and so on. Those are done to achieve dirty goals, and they are harder to counteract than ignorance.

[ksk]

> false premises (when someone tries to justify it using reasons like increasing sales for example and such).

How is it a false premise? For the sake of argument, lets say we have a "perfect" DRM method.

Then do you believe that - for e.g. all the people who're pirating Windows - would switch to a competing product because they were not going to buy it in the first place? IMHO That would be a completely erroneous position. Maybe _some_ might, but there is no evidence that everyone would. Which is the crux of the problem. If DRM didn't increase sales then I don't think you could make the argument that every single publisher who uses DRM is doing it for reasons other than sales.

[shmerl]

> How is it a false premise?

Because DRM is decreasing sales, not increasing them.

> lets say we have a "perfect" DRM method.

There is no perfect DRM. But let's say there is very hard to break DRM. That means very abusive, extremely privacy invasive policing method. It would fall even more into the crooked territory.

> If DRM didn't increase sales then I don't think you could make the argument that every single publisher who uses DRM is doing it for reasons other than sales.

Why not? I could make an argument that some do it out of ignorance, and the rest (of DRM users) are crooks. That's exactly what I'm saying. I.e. those who aren't dumb are using it for crooked reasons which have nothing to do with preventing piracy (I listed such common reasons above). And the rest (who use it indeed for sales sake) are digital Lysenkoists.

[ksk]

>Because DRM is decreasing sales, not increasing them.

Based on what?

[shmerl]

> Based on what?

Based on crippling the product for those who pay for it. I.e. there will be those who will simply skip it because of DRM altogether.

In addition, some skilled pirates will remove DRM and provide that product without crippling for everyone else, and there will be those who otherwise could buy it, if it would have been DRM-free, but because it's DRMed they will pirate it instead.

The bottom line - DRM means lost sales.