the protection is only useful if the criminals will only have your information for at most 1 year, after a year all bets are off and it is up to the screwed over customers to pay for any protection they need unless they can get all of the information changed and the old info invalidated (aka new identities)
what sony is doing is offering a false sense of security to offer the illusion that they will keep their customers safe but in reality, just want to offer a distraction long enough for the media and some people to lose attention, then when the customers start having identity problems, it will be on a individual basis and not news worthy even though it is potentially happening to 77 million sony customers.