John, you’re in the wrong business.
Oh, wait…
There’s another chapter in the ongoing story at the Sysinternals Blog
More on Sony: Dangerous Decloaking Patch, EULAs and Phoning Home
Click on the above link to read the rest of the story.
The latest version of Knoppix actually comes with K3B, a great CD/DVD ripping AND burning program. If you have two CD drives (flash drive is a good idea too), you could easily do this with an out-of-the-box Knoppix disc.
Developing a purposeful media-copying Knoppix version would be an interesting hobby project. I’ve seen a few tutorials on customizing Knoppix - maybe now’s a good time to try one out.
Something a lot lighter weight (smaller download) would be the idea. It just needs basic features from the OS and a bunch of preinstalled and preconfigured burning, ripping, encoding, editing, and encoding tools. Don’t need all the extra baggage that Knoppix is carrying around. Something that can fit on a flash drive would be good too, but not all computers can boot from a flash drive.
A couple of updates to this…first, Sony finally caved to the pressure and has halted production of CDs infected with this protection scheme:
Second, several viruses and trojans have appeared which use the installed rootkit to hide from virus scanners:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175188,00.html
Third, many virus scanning programs have been updated to detect, remove and protect against the Sony rootkit:
And finally, in regards to a LiveCD operating system for media copying and DRM stripping…I tried ripping CDs with Knoppix via K3b, and it works. However, the version of K3b included with Knoppix does not support coversion to MP3. You must either rip the CD to wave files and burn a lossless copy (not a bad idea), or rip the CD music to OGG (Ogg-Vorbis) compressed format, which is an open-source version of MP3 compression. I’m fairly certain that the iPod doesn’t support OGG audio file format.
I also found a customized version of Damn Small Linux (like Knoppix LiveCD, but smaller) that includes K3b in a 100Mbyte iso. It boots pretty quickly - if anyone’s interested, I can post a link.
Or you could get a Mac. 
Hate to break it to you, but:
“Sony music CDs can install kernel extensions on Mac OS X”
I thought the sony CDs have similar copy protection for Macs too, but it requires human intervention to install rather than doing it sneakily…
Phil
Edit: Oooo now that’s just not on, he beat me to it by less than a minute. My thunder was well and truly stolen. Bah! 
Don’t get too cocky. Macs are not immune from the same problem.
Sony Music CD’s Contain Mac DRM Software Too
Don’t trust the media companies to not try other tricky ways to get DRM or other restrictive software installed on your computer, whether it be a Mac or Windows. They could add extra content to the CD, like videos or games, that requires you to install something. They could distribute other kinds of software that people will want for whatever reason and that software could also install DRM stuff. They’ll figure out ways to get people to voluntarily install their restrictive software. Some people will fall for it or will cave. Others will not. But the media companies will keep on trying.
The media companies are now your adversary.
Makes for a nice cozy customer relationship, eh?
Doesn’t seem susceptible to the virus to me.
Was it ever not that way?
…Yet.
Kernel extensions can modify your operating system at a fundamental level (somewhat like rootkits) and are NOT a healthy thing to be installing willy-nilly.
It’s about damn time. From Slashdot:
Edit: Sony-BMG just posted an official apology.
I still have not seen the official apology from Sony. I have seen alot of fast butt covering in which Sony offered to replace the offending CD’s and pay shipping both ways and provide MP3’s of the CDs’ contents. Still, no official apology. Sony has in no way said, “gee, I’m sorry our corporation trashed your computers.” Nor have I seen an offer to compensate victims for the damage incurred. Until then, no Sony products will be purchased here.
Sony has settled one of their class-action lawsuits over the rootkit debacle:
Still no real apology. And it looks like Santa gave rootkits for Christmas this year instead of coal:
and yet another security vulnerability in a different CD copy protection scheme:
Sony sucks.
Did I miss something? Are big corporations suddenly in the practice of apologizing for their mess-ups? I thought that the admission of wrongdoing made one more liable (even after the class action suits). Somehow I don’t see Sony actually admitting any wrongdoing any time soon…
Here’s a related article where Sony does the opposite; I’m sure their tune has changed since early November:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,39020381,39236480,00.htm
Neither do I. Big corporations don’t do that. They don’t have to. I still get to vote with my money and I am simply saying that none of it will intentionally go to the Sony Corporation for any product unless they apologize to the victims of their vandalism.