Defective by Design is sponsoring a "Day Against DRM" today in an effort to spread the word about the trials, tribulations, and general badness of digital rights management schemes. Folks in hazmat suits (yes, hazmat suits) have dispersed across the globe to spread the gospel of unencrypted media, some of them even spotted by an Ars staffer in front of the Wrigley building in downtown Chicago.
Defective by Design is a project run by the Free Software Foundation, and it exists to protest the use of DRM in all forms. The project website quotes Peter Lee, a Disney executive, who once said, "If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed." The group wants to help Lee fail by educating consumers (nevermind that Lee's quote isn't actually about "hiding" anything from consumers at all; it's about the need for DRM schemes that are so transparent and simple to use that consumers don't even realize they exist), and to do that, they've taken suggestions for creative protests from the community at large.
Some of these are excellent, creative ideas. Some are exactly the sort of thing that can give the anti-DRM crowd a bad name. Writing Christmas carols with anti-DRM lyrics is fine if you're into that sort of thing, but calling DRM advocates "Digital Restrictions Mobsters" isn't going to advance the debate. And breaking iTunes DRM and then distributing the files free of charge is exactly the sort of thing that causes the content industries to implement DRM in the first place.
It's worth spreading the word about DRM, but it needs to be done in a thoughtful manner. Plenty of consumers would be fascinated to learn more about why they can't make backups of their DVDs or that they'll need DRM-compliant hardware to watch high-definition movies in Vista. If you've never had a heart-to-heart with friends or coworkers about the downsides of DRM, today's a good day to start.
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