I am forced to wonder if setting the clock forward to a date after the copyright on this game expires will automatically unlock the DRM. If not, perhaps there is a legal issue to be pursued, since the public domain is protected by the US constitution.

Yeah, I have that problem too, only reverse. I am a Unix admin. I get screenshots pasted directly into Outlook that come to me as "OLE_embedded" in Thunderbird. Just attach a .jpg, don't embed it and just assume that someone else is using your same client to read your email. OTOH, I can reasonably assume that if they really wanted help they would have sent it in a readable format in the first place.