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The demonstrations were organised by DefectiveByDesign.org, the Campaign to Eliminate DRM, and targeted Apple because it is the number one vendor of DRM-restricted digital content.

'Apple claims that people would steal from them if they didn't use DRM, and that they have to protect themselves,'

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said DefectiveByDesign's Gregory Heller. 'This is how they would like to portray it, but it's not how it is. Inclusion of DRM in products sold by Apple and other companies is inspired by their greed and desire to control us. To accomplish their goals, they want to monitor, report, and regulate your every interaction with your computer and electronics.'

The US action followed a demonstration in Paris by France's StopDRM coalition, which is attempting to influence the copyright bill currently being debated in the French parliament.

While Apple is certainly the biggest distributor of DRM content, it is far from being the most restrictive; for example, when iTunes's downloads are burnt to CD, the DRM is removed. In fact where iTunes, users, or potential users, do have an issue is the quality, and by extension, the price of the digital files: something that would be unlikely to improve if DRM was abandoned, unlikely as that is.