what does DRM free mean?

Question

i was looking at the new humble indie bundle and it said it was DRM free. can someone explains whats that means

Answer 1

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It's basically a method of preventing piracy, that comes with a lot of PC games these days. An example of basic DRM is for a game to require the disc to be in the computer to run.



Some DRM isn't bad, like the just-mentioned simple disc check, but others are much more elaborate, and the common opinion is that they hurt the honest consumer just as much as (if not moreso) than any pirate. A notorious example of DRM came with Assassin's Creed 2, requiring you to be online constantly to play, even though it was a singleplayer game with no online content whatsoever. Another example of bad DRM came with Bioshock, and only let you install the game a few times before locking you out entirely.



So to get back to your question, the term "DRM free" means that the product has no DRM whatsoever. They are giving it to you as is, and if you so choose you can then proceed to do whatever you want with it, i.e. upload it for others to play for free, give it to your friends, etc.



It's basically a gesture of goodwill and trust. They put faith in the belief that you will not cheat them, and in return you get to play the game completely unhindered.

Answer 2

What Is Drm Free

Answer 3

It means Digital Rights Management. In terms of music, MP3's or CD's with DRM mean they can only be copied so many times or put on X amount of players. DRM-free means you can copy and transfer the files as many times as you like.

Answer 4

the answers you have there that i see are not quite correct // there are mp3 player devices available that you can put drm protected wma music files onto, i just purchased one, from the manufacturer CRAIG it also plays amv video files but now about drm protection wma music files, they can NOT be burned onto a cd and there IS software out there that can remove the protection (& convert to mp3) , i have 2 different programs that do it // they are called "protected music converter'' & "all music converter" if you are gonna buy one, i suggest the "protected music converter" as the "all music converter" will only allow install on one computer system per purchase. and its a pain if you should crash your system, because then you gotta contact the company and get another activation code for it because crashing your system changes its machine signature. many software companies are doing this lately too/ making software that requires you to enter your machine signature code, and then an unlock code for the software. this prevents you from using the software on more than one computer some say that these programs that remove the protection from wma files are illegal // but then the companies who make these programs say its legal, because all that the software is doing is re-recording /& converting to a different format (like the way a fast dub system works with cassette tapes) re-recording a file is not illegal