Defective by Design (DBD) is a grassroots anti-digital rights management (DRM) initiative by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and CivicActions.

They argue that DRM "is designed to take away every possible use of digital media, regardless of legal rights, and sell some of these functionalities back as severely limited services.

"[3] DBD argues that DRM does not help, but rather hurts authors, publishers, studios, labels, and similar media producers and suppliers—especially those in independent media—by forcing them to work with distribution services that are difficult to switch away from.

[4] Defective By Design is a joint effort by the Free Software Foundation and CivicActions, a company that develops online advocacy campaigns.

The protest featured FSF members in yellow hazmat suits "handing out pamphlets explaining that Microsoft products are – in the words of the key slogan for the campaign – 'defective by design' because of the DRM technologies included in them".

[7] Hazmat suits were again worn by protesters and leaflets were handed out to the public explaining Apple's use of DRM in their iTunes music store and on their iPod media players.