The charges in these cases is not that the person downloaded the music, but that they were distributing it. This is where the "innocent sharing" comes in: how many non/. people are aware then when you use the peer-to-peer software that you're not just getting music, but unless you modify the default settings then every file you have downloaded gets shared with everyone else (as well as your entire library of possibly legally obtained music if you let the software "discover" it for you). YOU become the distributor. Without you realizing, you could easily be distributing your copy of the songs with hundreds of other people, which is what the RIAA is so upset about. Sure, the distribution is illegal, but did you know you were doing it?
I plugged my Windows hard-drive into my Ubuntu box and **surprise** "it was automounted with all of the Windows data exposed." I guess there's no security in Windows either? Hmmm, then I did it with an Ubuntu drive on another Ubuntu machine and it's data was exposed too! The truth is that there's no real security in any device when you have physical access to it unless *all* data is encrypted, which I have yet to find ANY operating system that does that.
I have to agree that "tablets," as most people are used to them do suck. I had one and it was just too cumbersome to use. However, touch screens as business machines have been HUGELY successful when the **interface** is good. Think of all the restaurants, from fast food to fine dining, hospitals, retails stores, dry cleaners, and the thousands of other places where touch interfaces are the only method of interacting with their computers. I've never been to a McDonald's and heard the cashier say "man, if only I had a real keyboard for this thing". It's not the "tablet;" it's the software that's always been the biggest problem because it was never designed to be interacted with through touch.
Only time will tell if the iPad has made this transformation successfully, but since it's comes from an O/S designed from the beginning for touch, it's already way ahead of every other "tablet" device. And this isn't just for Apple: Google's Android on larger devices shows similar promise.
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The charges in these cases is not that the person downloaded the music, but that they were distributing it. This is where the "innocent sharing" comes in: how many non /. people are aware then when you use the peer-to-peer software that you're not just getting music, but unless you modify the default settings then every file you have downloaded gets shared with everyone else (as well as your entire library of possibly legally obtained music if you let the software "discover" it for you). YOU become the distributor. Without you realizing, you could easily be distributing your copy of the songs with hundreds of other people, which is what the RIAA is so upset about. Sure, the distribution is illegal, but did you know you were doing it?
I plugged my Windows hard-drive into my Ubuntu box and **surprise** "it was automounted with all of the Windows data exposed." I guess there's no security in Windows either? Hmmm, then I did it with an Ubuntu drive on another Ubuntu machine and it's data was exposed too! The truth is that there's no real security in any device when you have physical access to it unless *all* data is encrypted, which I have yet to find ANY operating system that does that.
I have to agree that "tablets," as most people are used to them do suck. I had one and it was just too cumbersome to use. However, touch screens as business machines have been HUGELY successful when the **interface** is good. Think of all the restaurants, from fast food to fine dining, hospitals, retails stores, dry cleaners, and the thousands of other places where touch interfaces are the only method of interacting with their computers. I've never been to a McDonald's and heard the cashier say "man, if only I had a real keyboard for this thing". It's not the "tablet;" it's the software that's always been the biggest problem because it was never designed to be interacted with through touch. Only time will tell if the iPad has made this transformation successfully, but since it's comes from an O/S designed from the beginning for touch, it's already way ahead of every other "tablet" device. And this isn't just for Apple: Google's Android on larger devices shows similar promise.