Don't forget the part where the subsequent software supposedly provided to fix the problems actually made things worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

I suspect if they'd tried something like that today, it would have been a much bigger deal in the media and the resulting legal actions would have cost them a lot more. At least the fiasco probably increased awareness of the danger and prompted changes in various computer misuse laws around the world.