DRM keeps getting more sophisticated, but in the good old days a simple Sharpie or the shift key would circumvent most measures. It appears that’s not enough for Sony.
Sony’s latest DRM measure, reported by Sysinternals, actually patches Windows APIs, hijacking functions in order to completely cloak a driver/software combination which is far more nefarious.
Not only does this software communicate constantly to ensure that you don’t ever make more than 3 copies of the CD with any program, period, but it installs a filter on your optical device driver, to capture usage at that level.
If you manage to delete this hidden software (not an easy task) this device filter means that your CD-ROM driver fails to load, making your CD-ROM drive inoperable. Use Linux or a 64-bit version of Windows and you don’t have to deal with this. If you use a 32-bit version of Windows however, watch your Sony music carefully; it may be doing dark things without your permission.