The International Day Against Digital Restrictions Management aims to unite a number of projects, public interest bodies, websites and individuals and raise awareness about "the danger of technology that restricts access to films, music, literature and software."

The FSF is coordinating the activities as part of its Defective by Design anti-DRM campaign. The organisation has compiled a short history of a "Decade in DRM."

FSF founder and president Richard M. Stallman said: "DRM attacks your freedom at two levels. Its purpose is to attack your freedom by restricting your use of your copies of published works.

"Its means is to force you to use proprietary software, which means you don't control what it does. When companies organize (sic) to design products to restrict us, we have to organize (sic) to defeat them."

Other groups participating in, and supporting, the activities are the Open Rights Group and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

ORG executive director Jim Killock said DRM was a disaster for legitimate users of music, film and books. "They are designed to lock people into specific software and devices, destroying your rights to free speech uses like criticism, education and review. DRM means you lose control, and are at the mercy of vendors."

The EFF's Richard Esquerra said DRM was evolving as companies sought to restrict more than their users' ability to copy files. "The International Day Against DRM is a fresh opportunity to rise to the challenge yet again and fight for technology freedom," he added.