It seems Sony has overstepped the line with some DRM it used to protect its music CDs.

The article is very technical and goes deep into the internals of how Windows works, but for you non-techies, the bottom line is that Sony wrote what amounts to Spyware to protect its music. They used the very same techniques that virus and spyware writers use to cloack their programs. To add insult to injury, the malware is poorly written with no clear way to uninstall it. It cloaks itself and also creates an exploit in that any program named with a “$sys$” is cloaked from the operating system. This is most likely in violation of a variety of laws against this sort of thing (like the SPY act).

The shortsighted outcome of this approach is that Sony is effectively planting malware on those who choose to LEGALLY purchase their music. So from Sony’s perspective, they are infecting the systems of the good guys and creating a disincentive to purchase music legally.

As many people pointed out in the comments of the article, they would feel safer downloading music from an illegal source rather than installing proprietary software used to listen to DRM protected music. Perception is everything and if the public perceives that Sony requires installing spyware to play their copy protected music, they will look for alternative means to get the music.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a class action suit resulted from this.

via Jon Galloway