DRM

These days I am buying CDs and ripping them with grip.

I'm thinking of joining the Rhapsody online music service for my Sandisk mp3 
player.  Of course, what kills it for me is DRM.  A sliver of hope comes from 
the ability to burn "purchased" songs to a CD.  I have even seen Windows-only 
utilities to create a virtual CD (an ISO image, I assume), then rip mp3s from 
that.

1)      Is there an available Linux program to do the same thing?

2)      I've heard that the journey from the DRM protected content to a CD to 
mp3 
is not a pleasant one musically.  I'm not totally happy with the sampling 
rate of standard mp3 generally, although I live with it for the convenience 
of having all those tunes in my shirt pocket and on my hard drive.  I'm not 
in much of a mood for further degradation from removing the DRM.

Does anyone have any experience with this?  I suppose I could try it out and 
see, since there is a free trial, but I'm hoping someone else has been 
through the process.