Just a few days after the announcement of Sony using rootkits DRM on its CDs, a short while ago, Sony finally released a patch to hide its rootkits DRM, yet it will be still present on the system and still very difficult to fully remove.  Apparently, the Inquirer has revealed just how overboard Sony went with its DRM in this case as apparently it effectively punishes only those who decided to do what they thought was the right thing by buying their CD!

When the Rootkits is installed, it is very difficult to remove for even the most skilled technician; however it has one weakness in that the consumer has to agree to its EULA at least one time for it to get installed in the first place.  This means any experienced user aware of copy protected audio CDs will know that all they have to do is hold down the shift key to stop the disc auto-loading and tracks are ripable, assuming the software was never installed previously.  Also the disc's DRM is ineffective on a Macintosh and with non-Microsoft OS's.  For users who take the illegitimate P2P approach, the tracks are widely available on file sharing networks and these users certainly don't get penalised with the DRM.

Unfortunately, for those who are unhappy and wish to return their crippled disc, very few shops will take back an open product and even if so, there is usually a restocking fee.  Finally, Sony claims that its CDs are not infected with any Spyware or Malware.  Well it may not spy on the user's surfing / browsing habits, but I would certainly not call it free of Malware.  This term is often used for bad, harmful, dangerous or otherwise abnormal software.  As this software does intentionally interfere with the optical drive if it doesn't like what the user is doing and will also cause serious problems if the user tries removing it, this is a sure sign of Malware.

It seems quite strange to see music CDs coming with software where the user must agree to an End User License Agreement (EULA) in order to play the disc.  In the good old days, playing a record or a tape was as simple as popping it in, placing the needle on the record or pressing play, no matter what the device.  Now, this ain't as simple with playing CDs on a PC.

Now I'm finding it quite disturbing that the record labels are interesting in infecting consumer's PCs with all sorts of DRM including quite dangerous software in this case.  Some may say 'ah, that small player won't affect my high spec. PC", however imagine if all the record labels all took on their own DRM anti-piracy measures or worse still, started using rootkits like Sony.  Chances are that there will be all sorts of unexpected conflicts that will be a nightmare to fix, optical drives acting rather strange, not to mention a lot of memory and CPU resources being hogged by all these DRM tools running in the background, all spying on the optical drives or what software is running. :r

Source: The Inquirer