Stilly -

This newest Sony rootkit (again according to the honest and reliable Sony) is not used on DVDs. It's closer to what was the "Mac version" on the first Sony Audio CDs that were found to be damaging people's setups. The articles I've seen don't give any details on Sony's "patch" to fix this, but I'm dubious, since it appears that if you insert the CD after applying the patch, it will reinstall the rootkit.

DVDs generally have their own DRM "features," and there appear to be quite a few different systems. For the most part, DVDs attempt to block you from making any copies so the blocking function can be a feature of the DVD. The Sony Audio CD thing attempted to allow a limited number of copies, and since you can't write a record of how many copies have been made back onto the CD, a permanent record of copies made has to be on your machine. It's the attempt to modify your machine to make it keep track of what you do (with specific individual CDs) that seems to be causing all the problems.

And the post preceding the "new Sony rootkit" points out that there are apparently a number of "Adware" vendors selling potentially more destructive "rootkit equipped" tracking, and possibly DRM, programs to anyone with money.

John