Sony claims that their "new" DRM system has only been used on about 20 titles, but appearance of the root kit used by their system several months before those titles were released suggests additional use. In the report by the fellow who first reported the Sony connection (linked in the first article above) he does note that the people who sold this system to Sony also had several other record distributors as customers, so total appearance of this (and/or similarly invasive DRM methods) is a bit uncertain. Sony may just be the only one who's been caught - so far.

My personal inclination is to suggest you just "don't have a Sony CD," and write to the artists you don't have to tell them why.

The CDs that Sony admits using this system on are "Clearly Marked" (if you really look for it) to indicate that a "Digital Rights Protectin System" is on the CD, so theoretically any CD not so marked is still safe to play. Trust them if you have a lot of confidence.

One would assume that an audio recording from one of the "protected" CDs, played in a non-computer probably would be safe, but I haven't seen comment on that.

A Copy CD made in a non-computerized player/burner may or may not copy the shit with the music, although one would suspect it would. The bits on the "protected" CDs supposedly are encoded so that only the "player" that comes on the CD and installs itself on your computer can play them on a computer.

John