[knlje]

In my country DRM is a way for the copyright holder to communicate to the user that private copying is prohibited. All DRM systems can be trivially broken but it is illegal. If the content is not DRM protected you can legally make private copies.

Thus the major differences between DRM and DRM-free products are:

1) The DRM-free product you own for the rest of your life. You can legally do format conversions for future proofing your ownership.

2) The DRM product you can use for a time which is usually less than your lifetime. Sometimes the physical product format deteoriates (e.g. DVD) or the file cannot be used anymore (e.g. if Audible shuts down its login servers).

In the case of a streaming provider I do not understand why to go through so much hassle to prohibit private copying. You could just include a text that says "private copying prohibited". This would be an easier way to achieve the same thing.

I have a feeling that there are some people actively misleading copyright owners to use these DRM solutions and pay for their use. After all they only pay for delivering this message to the end user in an overly complicated manner.