Sony continues to lie to you about thier "copy protection" technology. They have responded to Mark's (read entry at Sysinternals) exposure of their DRM and bogus "patches", "updates" and promised of removal. In short, don't trust Sony on this, they are just stalling.
What burns me is that Sony's "DRM" only hurts legitimate consumers who trust Sony, not people who are by nature hackers or even geeks (like me). I never install anything without scanning the license agreement, and I NEVER install software that comes on a DVD or music CD. Which means I would never get this root kit Sony is distributing.
The "secure" software can be avoided just by the user refusing to install it and running Windows Media Player or some other player. Only people who are willing to (foolishly, as it turns out) trust Sony get burned.
People who actually want to rip Sony off and distribute their music illegally would automatically skip Sony's installation prompt and rip the audio directly from the CD. The people Sony supposedly wants to stop will, by and large, never even see Sony's little ploy, let alone be taken in by it.
In the forthcoming next-gen video format wars (between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray), I was looking forward to Blu-Ray, even though Sony championed it... After this story broke, I'm not sure I can trust the format.
It seems like a bone-headed thing for Sony to do. At the time when they are trying to make serious money on their new format, they are stabbing consumers in the back?
Sony didn't make money off of BetaMax, they largely failed (in the US) on MiniDisc, nobody I know ever got behind DTS... now this, just before Hollywood finally chooses sides on the movie format of the future.
Consumers can hit Sony where it hurts by voting with their wallets... don't buy thier "enhanced" music discs, and opt for HD-DVD. I sure won't. I urge you not to, either.
Grrr... Sony... Grrr...
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