DRM which is mainly known as digital rights management but is more accurate to call digital restrictions management. It is used be many capitalists to restrict how people use the digital content they buy when it comes to games, music, movies, books, etc since they are afraid of piracy and people sharing around files of the content they distribute. It can be thought of as a form of digital handcuffs. DRM often works by requiring an online connection to view drm'd content even if the content of the files are installed locally on one's computer, requiring certain codecs, requiring certain web browsers, virtualization, hardware based encoding paths, make it difficult to make a backup copy etc. An example of DRM would be denuvo which requires periodic internet connection and makes the performance of a game worse. When it comes to viewing drm online content like with netflix, the video quality is somehow worse on GNU/Linux than on Windows or MacOS. It is also a form of software bloat since it is more code running on your computer that is not necessary. A notable person who opposes drm is Richard Stallman who thinks that DRM should be illegal which is quite based. Even Capitalists like Gabe Newell have said that strict drm is not necessary in games and can be a hinderance. There are movements such as Stop Killing Games and Defective by Design that are against DRM.
DRM can do quite nasty things on one's computer other than requiring internet like with the Sony rootkit scandal and how many DRM schemes tend to also be spyware. And one bad effect of DRM is that it basically gives you no ownership over the digital content you have bought and are reliant on some companies servers to make sure the drm is still authenticating your copy of the software you purchased. It may also prevent installation of software onto other devices without an account login like with steam drm or with digital games on game consoles.
Unfortunately, Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which makes it illegal to circumvent DRM. But legality doesn't necessarily mean morality. For instance Jim Crow laws and racial segregation used to be legal in the US. It isn't necessarily an immoral thing to crack or circumvent a drm since it restricts how you use a piece of media or software.
Even outside entertainment like movies, video games, music, etc drm has extended to things like keurig coffee makers, light bulbs, printers, and John Deere trackers. In these cases they are implemented to prevent people from repairing the things they bought or try to make it so that someone's printer will not work unless they pay a subscription.
When implementing drm into software or even with hardware, it goes to show that the software developers and companies of software like games do not trust their userbase and think they would hurt their bottom line with there being a need to restrict them.
I have had a debate recently with a pro drm person. They were saying developers need to eat but I counter argued saying that I will not support developers that restrict me. He said that activation servers going down for a single player game is the same as when an mmo server goes down like those are comparable things. For one, an mmo relies on other people to play unlike a single player game where only one person is needed to play. I mentioned that the console version of Persona 5 doesn't need online check ins unlike the steam version in which he said consoles are for pirates which isn't true since ps5 and xbox series x have not been jailbroken yet. Plus persona 5 got cracked recently so denuvo drm is only harming paying customers. He wanted every game to have online check ins and anti cheat systems even if it is single player. Basically, pro drm people are not the brightest.
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