About DRM and the need to connect to the internet

[beelbeebub]

There has been much muttering about the lack of offline play and one of the theme arising has been that ED was promised to be DRM free.
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Some posters are saying that the need to always be online to play means that FD have gone back on their promise to make ED DRM free.
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I don't think the need to be connected to the internet is the same as DRM and here is my argument why.
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Imagine an open source skype client, 100% free to install and sanctioned by MS.
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If I install this software on a machine without internet access I cannot make or receive calls
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If I do install the software on an internet connected machine I will have to sign into my skype account in order for the servers to know who I am so someone can connect someone trying to call me, to me, which the can't do if they don't know who I am.
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Does that mean the open source, free to install software has DRM?
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Edit: it's been pointed out that you can look at offline pages with FF, so for clarity i have used an updated analogy.

Spoiler

If I have an open source web browser (say Firefox) that is indisputably DRM free. There is no electronic (or in the case of FF legal) restriction on me installing in on as many machines as I like.
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If I install FF on a machine without internet access, I cannot access web pages, I cannot look at the latest stock prices, news, check my email etc.
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Does that mean that FF has DRM because it requires an internet connection for full use?
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My understanding is that ED can be installed on any machine, but you are only allowed one connection per user to FD's servers for stock prices, news, messages, match making. If you don't have an internet connection then you can't access that information and the software doesn't work because of a lack of that information, not because DRM.
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I suppose FD could make this really beyond doubt by making the tutorials available without an internet connection and place the login gateway at the after the "start" section of the main menu. Then there would be no question over the DRM.

 

[Tar Stone]

I agree with you, it isn't DRM, it needs to connect to the servers to actually work. But eventually there will be a wiki definition that will have been edited to within an inch of its life by the same people who will come on here and quote it at you to show how wrong you are.

 

[Clenfus]

I don't want to be conflictive but... a web browser, even without internet, can be used to watch stored web pages on your hard disk, or opening pictures or flash animations or files on a computer on your local area network.

It will never be the same as accessing the internet to surf the web, but a scaled down use of the product is still possible. Many backers wanted that: a reduced version of the game they could play without connecting, even if they don't have internet, or even in twenty more years when maybe the servers don't exist.

 

[beelbeebub]

I don't want to be conflictive but... a web browser, even without internet, can be used to watch stored web pages on your hard disk, or opening pictures or flash animations or files on a computer on your local area network.

It will never be the same as accessing the internet to surf the web, but a scaled down use of the product is still possible. Many backers wanted that: a reduced version of the game they could play without connecting, even if they don't have internet, or even in twenty more years when maybe the servers don't exist.

You are quite right a browser can be used for viewing local content, which is why I said that allowing use of the tutorials offline would put the DRM question beyond doubt.
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My take on the whole "OfflineGate" (as every scandal or near scandal or not even scandal must now be a "-gate" thing is:
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When FD started they thought that they could do just what you suggest, include a static local version of the galaxy for offline play. Essentially the client woudl either plug into an online database or a local one (like a web browser looking at online news or a local cache).
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However as development progressed the client become more and more dependent on online services. For example at one stage docking control was done by the PC's in an island, but this proved to be too problematic (players couldn't get docking clearance), so the control of that moved to FD servers.
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At some stage FD hit the point where in order to keep improving the online galaxy experience (say make SC transitions faster), they had to do something that would make the offline version harder to achieve. They had a choice, make the changes and lose offline (or at least make offline harder to do) or forgo improving the online experience in order to allow the chance of an offline one.
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Several of these decisions probably had to be made and each time an offline version became harder. At some point (probably in the last week) a meeting was held and FD had to decide, "can we still do offline?", maybe there was an online feature they wanted to implement that was the final straw. FD decided to go with a better online experience. They announced it to the forum and the sky fell (except it hasn't really, if you look at the polls, the "I want a refund" and "Off line is vital" numbers are much lower than the "I don't care much" bunch)​

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So no conspiracy, no shady deals, just a bunch of developers trying their best to ship a complex piece of code and having a bunch of back seat drivers looking over their shoulders.

 

[Dr Zachary Smith]

There has been much muttering about the lack of offline play and one of the theme arising has been that ED was promised to be DRM free.
-
Some posters are saying that the need to always be online to play means that FD have gone back on their promise to make ED DRM free.
-
I don't think the need to be connected to the internet is the same as DRM and here is my argument why.
-

If I have an open source web browser (say Firefox) that is indisputably DRM free. There is no electronic (or in the case of FF legal) restriction on me installing in on as many machines as I like.
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If I install FF on a machine without internet access, I cannot access web pages, I cannot look at the latest stock prices, news, check my email etc.
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Does that mean that FF has DRM because it requires an internet connection for full use?
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​

My understanding is that ED can be installed on any machine, but you are only allowed one connection per user to FD's servers for stock prices, news, messages, match making. If you don't have an internet connection then you can't access that information and the software doesn't work because of a lack of that information, not because DRM.
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I suppose FD could make this really beyond doubt by making the tutorials available without an internet connection. Then there would be no question over the DRM.

It all handily ensures you need multiple accounts to play the game on more than one machine at the same time though...so in other words it stops piracy, which is good for a multiplayer game, but the people complaining are the ones that rightly thought there would be a 100% offline option... for them it might as well be DRM.

 

[beelbeebub]

It all handily ensures you need multiple accounts to play the game on more than one machine at the same time though...so in other words it stops piracy, which is good for a multiplayer game, but the people complaining are the ones that rightly though there would be a 100% offline option...

Yes, online requirements do reduce piracy (well, stop it actually).
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The people who wanted offline are right to be disappointed, especially if they are in a position where they can't get online. However, if FD (and they say they did have to make this choice) had a choice between two options...

• Drop offline - Improve online
• Keep offline - Restrict online

...they had to choose. They chose online over offline. TBH I probably would have made the same choice, as some one once said, sometimes there are no good choices...

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

Oh for the love of sweet dieties.

Right, to put this to bed once and for all.

DRM is Digital Rights Management. What that means in practice is that any form of content management that forces you to authenticate your account qualifies. However, times have changed since the advent of the internet and these days DRM tends to mean "games which force a consistent connection to a server outside of the local computer". However you wish to spin it, Diablo 3 on the PC has DRM, even if it is ostensibly a single player experience, the DRM in question is that you must sign in to your battle.net account in order to experience the game.

Elite Dangerous requires you to sign in to your online account and will require you to sign in to your online account in order to continue accessing the game, at no point will this requirement change, therefore you are going to be reliant on an authentication process that is not local. That is the current and correct understanding of DRM as in the current climate. Furthermore as the game will not function without a constant internet connection (much like Diablo 3 and the new simcity prior the offline patch), it's effectively tethered DRM, because you cannot experience and enjoy the product without being (a) logged on and (b) connected in some way to Frontier's galaxy server.

Logic, does you has it? I dearly hope so.

 

[Pibbles]

In fairness, the need to connect to the Internet is not necessarily DRM. DRM simply means you have to prove you are authorised to consume the content. This could be DRM in an enterprise whereby a certificate is presented and validated by a certificate authority before you can read certain documents, and this is in fact a very common implementation. This could be DRM by a smart card or other token (e.g. iPod), also very common. You may never have to personally authenticate, least of all outside the internal network.

DRM is not defined by a need to connect to the Internet, DRM is defined by the need for you or a device to prove identity to consume content. It MAY be that you authenticate to an external, Internet authentication provider to do this, but that does not correlate back the other way.

I do not approve of how FD have handled the decision re offline play and am going to help as many people as I can get a refund, but that's not on the basis they have introduced DRM, but on the basis they have moved the goalposts on offline.

Have FD introduced DRM by the back door? Maybe, but we cannot say that until we see the finished game. Is there more ongoing connectivity to the central servers required than initially planned in order to shore up the security weak P2P model? Very likely I would say, but again I have not seen the finished game.

But this is not the issue, it's how FD are going about it. They assessed the technical impact and did something about it but forgot the important bit, how to deal with the customer impact. That's why everyone is irritated.

 

[deMangler]

Needing an on-line connection to FD servers is effectively tethered DRM. There will be many convincing arguments made otherwise. I expect there will be no chance of a refund based on this because FD can say it isn't about DRM it is about game functionality - but anyone who has been part of the project since kickstarter knows full well that off-line DRM-free play was always something that was regarded as a positive part of Elite Dangerous. Now apparently it was always planned to be on-line only? Might as well just call me and everyone else that is debating this stupid.
I have always sided with FD against the crowd of entitled players re. features and so-on, but this is a bolt from the blue that renders the game unplayable. That is different.

 

[Pibbles]

Needing an on-line connection to FD servers is effectively tethered DRM. There will be many convincing arguments made otherwise. I expect there will be no chance of a refund based on this because FD can say it isn't about DRM it is about game functionality - but anyone who has been part of the project since kickstarter knows full well that off-line DRM-free play was always something that was regarded as a positive part of Elite Dangerous. Now apparently it was always planned to be on-line only? Might as well just call me and everyone else that is debating this stupid.
I have always sided with FD against the crowd of entitled players re. features and so-on, but this is a bolt from the blue that renders the game unplayable. That is different.

It's pretty much a given they will have to give an EU STORE buyer a refund over this decision because it is still a new technical constraint that was not agreed at the time of sale and since June 13th that has been illegal and has specific consequences. The main one being the contract is void.

But not Kickstarters. I am a KS backer and I think how they have handled the decision stinks but I would not try to get a KS refund on this item. If they failed to deliver a listed pledge reward - boxed game or something - then I would investigate that process.

 

[Christopsy]

In fairness, the need to connect to the Internet is not necessarily DRM. DRM simply means you have to prove you are authorised to consume the content. This could be DRM in an enterprise whereby a certificate is presented and validated by a certificate authority before you can read certain documents, and this is in fact a very common implementation. This could be DRM by a smart card or other token, also very common. You may never have to personally authenticate, least of all outside the internal network.

DRM is not defined by a need to connect to the Internet, DRM is defined by the need to prove your identity to consume content. It MAY be that you authenticate to an external, Internet authentication provider to do this, but that does not correlate back the other way.

I do not approve of how FD have handled the decision re offline play and am going to help as many people as I can get a refund, but that's not on the basis they have introduced DRM, but on the basis they have moved the goalposts on offline.

Have FD introduced DRM by the back door? Maybe, but we cannot say that until we see the finished game. Is there more ongoing connectivity to the central servers required that initially planned in order to shore up the security weak P2P model? Very likely I would say, but again I have not seen the finished game.

But this is not the issue, it's how FD are going about it. They assessed the technical impact and did something about it but forgot the important bit, how to deal with the customer impact. That's why everyone is PO'd.

And in what way is it a bad thing for FD to ensure that only people that have paid for the game can play it? They're not a f**king charity!

 

[Pibbles]

And in what way is it a bad thing for FD to ensure that only people that have paid for the game can play it?

Please read my post, I did not say it was.

I said they handled the human impact of the change badly.

 

[Robert Graham]

DRM is simply Digital Rights Management, a Digital Method to see if you have the Right to use the product.

Frontier by having the Launcher force you to login is carrying out a D.R.M check, you connect to their servers to make certain that you have the right to use the product that you have installed on your computer. That is the first level of D.R.M here.

The second level of D.R.M is the always active server connection, due to this you require 1. there for it is also a part of the D.R.M protection system.

Those using Diablo 3 as a example, the D.R.M side of D3 at it's core is the Battle.net authentication that you must carry out no matter which way you sign in to check that you legally have the right to use the product.

For Adobe users it's the Key that you have to put in to prove you own the software.

For Lightwave 3D users it's either the Dongle or the Key you have in when you use the software.

For Zbrush users it's the internet activation and or phone activation on first use.

etc etc etc.

If it was truly D.R.M Free you could simply put it in, install it and play it with out caring where/when/how/what

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

I have always sided with FD against the crowd of entitled players re. features and so-on, but this is a bolt from the blue that renders the game unplayable. That is different.

Forgive me .. But how have you been playing the Beta up until now then?

(Assuming you are part of the Beta .. making the assumption, sorry).

 

[deMangler]

When I have tested the game I have been on-line. I have been testing since first alpha. I hoped to begin playing the game when it is released.
I will of course be able to play the game if I can get on-line, but the game will be unplayable if I cannot get on-line.
From what MB has said there is no doubt about this. My DRM-free hard copy of the game that I pledged for will be nothing but a waste of plastic.

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

In fairness, the need to connect to the Internet is not necessarily DRM. DRM simply means you have to prove you are authorised to consume the content. This could be DRM in an enterprise whereby a certificate is presented and validated by a certificate authority before you can read certain documents, and this is in fact a very common implementation. This could be DRM by a smart card or other token (e.g. iPod), also very common. You may never have to personally authenticate, least of all outside the internal network.

You don't need to connect to the internet to have DRM in a product that part is true. But how many products that *do not* have DRM or some form of authentication gateway to use the product mandate an internet connection nonetheless? Go on, I'll wait. Whilst the fallacy correlation proves causation usually applies, in this case it's something more along the lines of provable fact in so much as :

DRM products in the internet age require an authentication check on a remote server
A remote server is defined as a piece of hardware in a physically remote location from your local computer
As it is physically remote, you require an internet connection
Ergo, DRM generally requires an Internet connection, and Internet connections mandated in products generally imply a form of DRM going on.

I do not approve of how FD have handled the decision re offline play and am going to help as many people as I can get a refund, but that's not on the basis they have introduced DRM, but on the basis they have moved the goalposts on offline.

Have FD introduced DRM by the back door? Maybe, but we cannot say that until we see the finished game. Is there more ongoing connectivity to the central servers required than initially planned in order to shore up the security weak P2P model? Very likely I would say, but again I have not seen the finished game.

But this is not the issue, it's how FD are going about it. They assessed the technical impact and did something about it but forgot the important bit, how to deal with the customer impact. That's why everyone is PO'd.

What concerns me is not only is this DRM by the back door, which it looks to be provably true, but it's also the worst of both worlds, it's DRM via centralised galaxy server for information pushes, but combined with the security weak P2P multiplayer model for netcode. Whoever came up with that bright idea... really -.-

 

[Dejay]

Some good points here but I'd expect this thread to be merged into the current "offline mode complainers thread" soon.

 

[Pibbles]

What concerns me is not only is this DRM by the back door, which it looks to be provably true, but it's also the worst of both worlds, it's DRM via centralised galaxy server for information pushes, but combined with the security weak P2P multiplayer model for netcode. Whoever came up with that bright idea... really -.-

Yes, it feels like a kludge all around. But I can't say for a fact it is until the game is released and we see how it works in practise. If on day one release the game is falling over due to authentication overload etc then we know FD made the same stupid mistake others made before them.

 

[beelbeebub]

DRM is simply Digital Rights Management, a Digital Method to see if you have the Right to use the product.

Frontier by having the Launcher force you to login is carrying out a D.R.M check, you connect to their servers to make certain that you have the right to use the product that you have installed on your computer. That is the first level of D.R.M here.

The second level of D.R.M is the always active server connection, due to this you require 1. there for it is also a part of the D.R.M protection system.

Those using Diablo 3 as a example, the D.R.M side of D3 at it's core is the Battle.net authentication that you must carry out no matter which way you sign in to check that you legally have the right to use the product.

For Adobe users it's the Key that you have to put in to prove you own the software.

For Lightwave 3D users it's either the Dongle or the Key you have in when you use the software.

For Zbrush users it's the internet activation and or phone activation on first use.

etc etc etc.

If it was truly D.R.M Free you could simply put it in, install it and play it with out caring where/when/how/what

DRM is a subset of Right Management aka copy protection. Funnily enough the original Elite came with a DRM system called "Lenslok" involving a computer generated pattern, which when viewed through the supplied lens revealed some characters. By typing the correct code in you proved to the software that you had the lens and hence had the right to the game. If you think modern DRM is frustrating, loading a game over 10 minutes from tape before the thing reset itself because you couldn't read the blurry text through a cheap plastic lens was a whole other level!
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Back on track though, if someone creates software that plugs into an online service (say a gmail client) is that DRM? It seems that any software that relies on an online service is DRM by default, so we can't complain that ED is DRM or even be surprised.
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Regarding the loss of offline, i understand that for some people it's a blow but if the dev's were faced with a decision, drop offline or hamstring online they had to jump me way or the other. Right now in a parallel universe FD are being roasted for dropping online co-op or something in order to keep the offline mode for a few people.

 

[Dejay]

Yes, it feels like a kludge all around. But I can't say for a fact it is until the game is released and we see how it works in practise. If on day one release the game is falling over due to authentication overload etc then we know FD made the same stupid mistake others made before them.

I think that is pretty much inevitable lol. Unofficial release date: 3 days later.