Neuros Technology, manufacturer of open-source powered, analog-to-digital video recorder hardware, is spearheading a new effort to educate consumers about digital rights management (DRM) by establishing the "Unlocked Media" brand. The idea is for the "Unlocked Media" trademark to be freely available to innovators making products that allow media to be stored and played anywhere.
The establishment of the "Unlocked Media" badge is a consumer-oriented salvo that complements other important efforts to combat DRM, like the Free Software Foundation's "Defective By Design" campaign. Many activists and technologists are opposed to DRM on principle, but for some users, their primary understanding is that DRM is extraordinarily inconvenient. The "Unlocked Media" trademark is targeted at this kind of consumer, identifying products that reject DRM for the sake of compatibility and versatility.