Professor Felton has a few bits to say on the subject over at Freedom to Tinker.
Also, I’ll note that there is actually a way to get the tracks onto an iPod: buy the album in compressed, digital format from the iTunes Music Store. However, this gives you what is obviously an inferior copy, and the issues associated with Apple’s DRM are the same fundamental problems any such system faces.
In other news, it appears that the Beastie Boys have fallen into the same trap, making their new record another one I’d buy but for the DRM, particularly given reports that the disc installs software without asking upon being loaded in the owner’s computer (and this time, it’s true of both Windows and Macs).