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The lawsuit, against Sony BMG Music Entertainment, alleged that the XCP technology (SunnComm's MediaMax and First4Internet's Extended Copy Protection, also known as XCP) was harmful to end-users' computers, not least because the cloaking of files in the operating system provided an easy and undetected entry for hackers. This is exactly what did happen, with the Stinx virus among others.

The software itself was installed without a user's explicit permission, in order

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to prevent the copying of music CDs. Sony had agreed to settle back in January.

Under the terms of the settlement, consumers can exchange old CDs for ones without the copy protection, they are entitled to a cash payment of $7.50 and one album download of their choice, and Sony has to provide tools to remove the rootkit software, reports Reuters.

'This is a good deal for music fans,' it quotes a lawyer for the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Kurt Opsahl, which represented consumers in the case. 'The software that caused this debacle is not going to be on any more discs and we encourage that everyone that has bought affected discs to take advantage of this settlement,' he said.

The EFF site has a section for consumers to check if they are eligible for a claim - www.eff.org/sony/.