In April it was noted that VR software in the Oculus Store, which was locked to/required Oculus hardware, could also be enjoyed on HTC's Vive using a simple software patch called LibreVR. Then in May, Oculus brought out a 'security patch' which tried to stop LibreVR working. This move backfired, as LibreVR was tweaked to sidestep the new 'security', by removing all security checks, including whether you actually owned the game…
It looked like a trend had been set for a see-saw exchange between Oculus and VR hackers wanting to use their Oculus Store bought software on whatever HMD they wished. The situation for Oculus and the hackers wasn't ideal; Oculus had previously stated "If customers buy a game from us, I don't care if they mod it to run on whatever they want," and the LibreVR author was reluctant to go further to bypass Oculus DRM, opening up games to easy copying, but that was the only way to remove the hardware checking DRM. Now it looks like Oculus has ditched the DRM entirely.
As noted by the LibreVR developer at the weekend, who was readying a patch update: "I've only just tested this and I'm still in disbelief, but it looks like Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5." Thus DRM patching LibreVR binaries have been removed from official download sources.
In a statement to UploadVR, Oculus said that in the June update it had "removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check." Additionally it said "We won’t use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future." However it will still implement some checks for protecting developer content, as it deems this necessary to prevent copying of software willy-nilly.
