DRM Implementation?

[MSFS 2020] Questions & Community Discussions
1

Per my original thread: <https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/is-drm-
protection-still-pending/407221> Cheers, Rob. Sim Horizon LLC

2

The documentation says a DRM will be offered through the official MS
Marketplace, which is how it is right now so, in a way, support is already
there. Was your question about if some DRM could be offered for non-
Marketplace add-ons too, or just to add extra features to the existing one ? I
can think of a couple of useful features, for example:

  • The ability to flag some files to be left unprotected when submitted to the Marketplace, for example the airport data .BGL which, lacking an alternative API to access it, might be required to be in the clear, so 3rd party utilities like flight planners can read its content.
  • A Simconnect API call to verify if a Marketplace product license is valid. It doesn’t need to expose any user data, it can be a black box, but might be useful, for example to allow developers to offer extra downloads for features that might not meet Marketplace requirements, like external .EXE, etc.
3

The current documentation indicates “Currently DRM is not available”
(marketplace or otherwise) … see my original link … is the documentation
not accurate? If documentation is not accurate and DRM is going to be
exclusive to Marketplace, I’d like to request that DRM be extended outside of
Marketplace only. Why does DRM need to be associated with Marketplace only?
Cheers, Rob.

4

The documentation is still slightly outdated, but does say marketplace only:

Currently DRM is not available for your packages, but a DRM solution is in
development and will be provided through the official marketplace framework
when it’s ready.

However, it is actually already possible to encrypt Marketplace packages. My
understanding is that the package entitlement is what unlocks the DRM and must
be acquired from a central location whether or not you are entitled to the
package. Therefore a DRM entitlement system outside of the Marketplace is not
planned at this time. -Matt | Working Title

5

Yes, some DRM tools are necessary outside the marketplace, especially to
protect javascript files.

6

Doesn’t this
help for the first time?