Sony are bastards.

Everyone has been going nuts in the news about Sony's rootkit embargo, but most people I bet don't know jack about it.
I've seen people say it'll destroy your computer or even that if you get rid of it, you wont be able to listen to any Sony CD on your PC, as well as all sorts of other crazy ideas, but it's not that bad.
All it is, simply put, is a piece of software that's installed on your PC when you load up a Sony CD that prevents you from being able to copy the CD.
The software itself, the actual rootkit, just hides the files installed from the CD so you can't manually delete them.
What this also means is that Anti-virus software can't see them either and this is where the real concern lies.
ANYONE could write a simple virus, even using code from an older one that's detected by any AV software under the sun, and all they gotta do is rename it appropriately and Sony's own little software will hide it for them!

So yeah, people are kicking up a fuss and for good reason, just sometimes it's not the right reason.

Luckily, there's a cure, it's here: http://www.sophos.com/support/cleaners/rkprfgui.com

Just download and run that little application and it'll check your PC for Sony's rootkit and any viruses that might be trying to exploit it. Problem solved.

Mind you, it's disgraceful that Sony would endanger the actual LEGIT users of their music like that. Not that I'm one to talk, I've never bought an album from Sony, BMG, Arista or any other publisher owned by them, but I have bought other Sony products, such as a Playstation, countless games, various peripherals (like TV's or whatever) and so on, however I personally wont ever buy ANYTHING from Sony ever again.

Oh and if it makes you feel any better, Sony filed a patent a few weeks ago which basically gives them exclusive rights to a way of "assigning" a piece of software to one system and one system only. (Basically, a sort of code is placed on a Disk. When that code is read, it's burned off the disk and the code is stored on the console itself). What does this mean in plain English? Only that you'll never be able to trade in your old PS3 games when you're done with them. Still want a PS3?

Sony can go and die.