Learn English – the antonym of DRM-free

antonymssingle-word-requests

The term DRM-free, with DRM standing for digital rights management, is commonly used online to refer to content which can be downloaded and transferred by the user. Content which is not DRM-free cannot be downloaded and is only accessible on the particular app or website of the content provider. My question is, what is the antonym of DRM-free? A single word term would be desired as the phrases I considered sound quite clunky and verbose. An example usage would be:

Sadly, Jack could not transfer his music files to his friend as they were _______

Best Answer

The most common term seems to be DRM protected. Other relatively common terms, in approximate descending order, include DRM locked, DRM enabled, DRMed, and DRM encumbered.

A few notes:

  • DRM protected seems to be relatively neutral, whereas DRM locked, DRMed, and DRM encumbered seem to be slightly pejorative and DRM enabled seems to be slightly, um, ameliorative.
  • DRM enabled is a bit ambiguous, in that it's also used to describe devices that support DRM. But the intended meaning is usually clear from context.
  • As Martin Smith mentions above, DRM can take a number of different forms, and doesn't necessarily prevent downloading.
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