the only was to play the music on your computer is to install this software. It prevents you from copying the music to youre hard drive (given), makeing a copie of the CD (shame on sony), but the big thing everyone is mad about, is the hole it opens in you're internet security that alows hacker to do REALLY REALLY BAD THINGS you're compter... oh yea... its already been cracked.... all of sonys "protected CD" are available over you're favorite file sharing program... i just dont know why all these companies cant lean that if it fits in our computer, we can do anything we want with it.