Ummm, I don't think a tree has lightbulbs

Six years on a novel? Come on, what were you writting? The screenplay for Duke Nukem Forever?

It's true that they didn't write the rootkit code, but it's silly to think that nobody in Sony's production line knew about it. I really don't think that a company the size of Sony would sell something and not really know whats in it. They were certainly not all evil, but they were not all innocent by ignorance.

Sony's Pictures Entertainment Senior VP Steve Heckler said it best: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/08/23/we_will_block_napster/
"The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams," Heckler said. "It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what."
"Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [ISP]. We will firewall it at your PC."

Seems to me that they were actually pursuing something that would do exactly what the rootkit did.