Anti-DRM day to debut next month

An awareness day to highlight the fight against digital rights management (DRM) will be held on 3 October.

Organised by DefectiveByDesign.org, a sub-group of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Anti-DRM day will involve a "worldwide day of action… to raise the stakes and attempt to increase awareness to the threats of DRM".

The technology is being increasingly embedded in software and music CDs to prevent users from making unauthorised copies. However, incidents such as last year's Sony rootkit debacle - when people who played certain CDs on their computers unwittingly downloaded software that made them more vulnerable to viruses and spyware - highlighted the serious risks involved in overzealous DRM implementation.

Dr Ian Brown, an expert for the Open Rights Group and academic working at UCL and the Cambridge-MIT Insitute, said on Friday: "Media companies should be embracing the new possibilities that digital technology brings.

"Instead, most are trying to lock us all into their 20th century business models, using faulty technology that will stop consumers from making legitimate uses of copyright works."

DRM has, by its nature, proved an attractive challenge to hackers and programmers, some of whom have achieved success in circumventing it. The most recent case saw Microsoft scramble to patch its Windows Media DRM after someone released a utility that would see it effectively bypassed.

The issue has also caused vigorous debate in the run-up to the third version of the General Public License (GPL), the document - currently being revised by the FSF - which underpins much of the open source movement. Many have argued for anti-DRM provisions to be included, saying DRM runs contrary to the spirit of open source. But Linux creator Linus Torvalds has said DRM can play an integral role in security, and claimed proposed revisions to the GPL go too far.

Earlier this year several organisations complained to MPs about DRM. The British Library said the technology was hampering its ability to use digitised material within the context of a library, and the Royal National Institute for the Blind claimed DRM stopped certain e-books working with software designed to make computers read text out loud.

In July, DefectiveByDesign.org organised a petition to persuade U2 frontman and longstanding rights campaigner Bono to sign up to the anti-DRM movement. It remains to be seen whether he will join its ranks.

The organisation is also concerned about DRM functionality which it says will be included in new high-definition DVD formats, to allow unprecedented monitoring and control over usage habits.

David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK