This document is designed as a guide to both video game publishers and gamers. Publishers should use it as a tool to avoid negative PR related to DRM practices, and gamers should use it as a tool to decide whether a publisher has truly wronged them with their implementation of DRM. This document is subject to change, and, in fact, will be amended as technology changes and shifts. The contact form at the bottom is open for all to submit amendments to this Bill of Rights. All submissions will be read, and considered for admission into this document. While we have, nor pretend to have any authority within the industry, it is our sincerest hope that this Bill of Rights will be taken seriously and used as a guideline both by the industry and the gamers. 

1. Publishers shall allow no less than three concurrent installs of a given piece of software. Customers shall be able to deactivate these installs and reactivate them on a new system.

2. A hardware upgrade or an OS version upgrade shall not constitute a new install, and shall not nullify a current and active install of a given piece of software

3.  Online authorization of software shall be supplemented with an alternate method in the event that the customer’s internet is down when reauthorization is required.

4. Online authorization shall be required no more than once per month for single player games.  If the game has an online multiplayer mode the authorization may be checked more frequently, but only when the online multiplayer mode is used.

5. Online authorization servers shall maintain a 99% or better rate of uptime.

6. If online authorization servers are to go offline temporarily for scheduled maintenance, authorization shall be deactivated for the duration of the downtime. If the authorization servers are going offline permanently, the authorization shall be disabled permanently before the the servers are taken offline.

7. No DRM software shall run on a system after the product it is authorizing has shut down.

8.  Customers shall be allowed a means of backing up their software installation files, either by allowing back ups of the physical media, or by providing a downloadable version of the software installer.

9. DRM software shall not interrupt normal operations of a PC. DVD/CD burners, antivirus software, and all other hardware and software shall continue to operate as they previously did after the DRM client is installed.

10. No malware shall be installed as part of a DRM client. This includes rootkits, and any and all types of spyware. 

Did we miss something? We welcome amendments from developers, publishers, and gamers alike.