Explaining DRM to a Less-Experienced PC User?

An anonymous reader asks: "I have a question for Slashdot users eager for a challenge. How would one explain – at a casual level – the concept of, and problems with, DRM to someone who is competent using a computer, but with little technical knowledge?"

Your SOOOUUUULLLLL!!!

[DoubleRing]

DRM will feast on the bones of your children! It will send your soul to the firey depths of hellfire, as its deadly claws of DEATH drink your brains through your eyeballs! The D in DRM is for DEVIL!! (not sure what the R and the M stand for...) It is the Dread Pirate Roberts, here for your SOOOUUUUULLLS....

Go Go Gadget Inappropriate Metaphor!

[Lord Bitman]

DRM is somebody saying "You can have this lawnmower, but only if you always take this ball and chain with it. Just so I'm sure you don't run off with it. So that you can still use it, it also comes with a butler who will unlock it for you. He unlocks it by flipping a switch from "locked" to "unlocked". You may not flip the switch yourself. The butler only works on tuesdays."

Re:there's hardly a casual explanation

[AKAImBatman]

*Ahem [slashdot.org]*

Re:Two words

[bangenge]

I've tried explaining the matter to my friends and girlfriend

someone please revoke this guy's geek license...

Car analogy

[Profound]

Everyone likes car analogies. Think of an engine in a car.

The big corporations who control the media, they're the piston. The cylinder is your ass.

Re:I've got it in one sentence

[dgatwood]

Shorter: All your songs are belong to us.

:-D

Wait, I thought that was MS Word?

[blueZ3]

code that disobeys the user's wishes, and acts against the user, on their own computer

Hey, you typed a dash at the beginning of a line! It looks like you're creating a bulleted list: and I know that what you really want is for me to reformat the line into a bulleted list with completely new and different formatting from what it had when you started typing