Looks like Sony are up to their old tricks again. This time they’ve quietly started putting a new copy protection scheme on their DVDs that renders them unplayable on some DVD players (including Sony’s own.)
This is just typical of the whole movie/music industry; it has no impact at all on actual pirates – a quick web search reveals torrents purporting to be DVD-rips of the movies concerned, but massively inconveniences their paying customers. I really do wonder how much longer the paying public is going to put up with this before just telling companies like Sony exactly where to stick their root-kits, incompatible disks, and assume-the-customers-are-criminals-mentality.