system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is DRM, why is it hard to crack, and how does it prevent third party programs/apps to make use of the DRM-protected item?
gpt
DRM stands for **D**igital **R**ights **M**anagement. There are many, many different types of DRM, and many of them (in fact, the vast majority of them) *have*, in fact, been cracked - that's why people are always coming up with new types and methods of DRM. 

How exactly each DRM works varies from case to case. In the Olden Days there was a certain type of copy protection which required that you have the original floppy disk in the drive, and the program would access a section of the disk that would appear as damaged to other programs. 

Nowadays many programs attempt to contact a server on the internet to validate permissions to run.