Why are you asking "statute in Texas law"? I thought I was pretty clear it was a Supreme Court ruling. (I did use an unqualified acronym for it, SCOTUS, so if that's the source of the confusion I apologize.)
Anyway, Dover v. Kitsmiller is one of the well-known and recent ones, but never reached the SCOTUS. One that did, though, is Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education. That explicitly barred even the mention of creationism as an "alternative" to evolution, let alone its explicit teaching. That went all the way to the SCOTUS after the school board was ruled against, and the SCOTUS declined to consider a reversal, so that decision became final, and with the Supreme Court refusal to reverse, became caselaw for the entire land.
Since Supreme Court decisions are sovereign over Texas law, that makes it illegal in Texas or anywhere else in the US. That stems, of course, ultimately, from the First Amendment (government may not establish/endorse religion), and the Fourteenth (rights amendments applied to state/local law as well as federal). Those are ultimately the laws at play here. I'm not sure why you think Texas law would have anything to do with it.
I'm also unsure why you think "(my) personal definitions" have force under Texas law, or where you think I claimed that. But the Supreme Court of the United States, and the US Constitution, most certainly do have legal and binding force in Texas.
Even if evolution is "part" of the state standard, teaching of creationism in a science class is forbidden by both law and definition. It was ruled by the SCOTUS, long ago, to be a religious doctrine and not a scientific theory, and it is exactly that, as it is either unfalsifiable (old-earth) or already falsified (young-earth). Any "science" class teaching creationism, is not one.
If you really need a citation for the SCOTUS ruling, I'll dig one up. But yes, I absolutely have "something to stand on" here.
So yes, I'm concerned with what's happening in reality. Do you really think that regulation is getting consistently enforced, and teachers who violate it disciplined or fired, when even the governor is saying the direct opposite? Regulations and laws only mean anything if they are, in practice, enforced.
At least in the US, you're way out of date. Lifetime limits became illegal in 2010, under the Affordable Care Act. Annual limits may currently be no less than $2 million, and will be outlawed entirely as of 2014.
Disagreeing with the above AC is one thing. Disagreeing with established fact and reality is quite another. It is not acceptable to teach things in school that are demonstrably false.
At least in the US, jamming done by private entities is illegal. The RF paint? Maybe, but I can't imagine shoppers being too happy about going to a place their devices don't work. If I found out a store were doing that intentionally, I'd probably not return.
I've made it exceptionally clear that I am not available 24x7. If my boss would like me to be on call for some period, I'm willing to discuss that, but it needs to be arranged in advance for a clear time period.
If some communication is coming in for work right now, I don't even know about it and I'll handle it on Tuesday, given the 3-day weekend. Weekends are not "extra work days", they are my time to relax, unwind, and come back to the office ready to do a much better job than if I were constantly tired, fatigued, and burnt out. Ultimately, that benefits my employer, too.
Unfortunately, what people don't realize is that taxes actually do pay for things. I've literally been told by people, here in the US, that taxes are just "wasted" or "stolen" money and don't really do anything. When I ask them if they've ever driven on a public road, or attended a public school, or occupied safe and well-inspected buildings, or taken safe and well-controlled flights, they launch into rants about "inefficiency".
We live in a society, and we're supposed to care for one another, especially those most vulnerable. "I've got mine and %$)@*% you buddy" is not a recipe for a stable or pleasant society, certainly not one that I'd want to live in. And that's said as one who's at least to a reasonable degree got mine--as many of us here know, developers don't make bad money. But that doesn't ultimately mean much if society isn't kept stable and healthy.
It reminds me a great deal of Monty Python's "What have the Romans ever done for us?" sketch. Substitute "gubmint" for "Romans", and you've essentially got the same scenario.
And it boggles my mind that people think private companies bent on making as much profit as possible will provide services at a lower cost than an entity which need not make one.
Why do you think the Occupy movement scared the holy hell out of them? It wasn't because they set up tents in a few parks.
Really, neither side cares too much whether you favor the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right, so long as you're busy demonizing the other side and staying divided. That's just your required participation in the Two Minutes' Hate, citizen. But when someone came along and said "We know who's pulling the strings, and we're all here to talk to the puppeteer", well now, THAT had to be stopped.
If the interrogator has already decided you're guilty, and is going to beat/torture you regardless, I fail to see how it makes any difference even if you really did have no idea the encrypted data was on the machine and have no clue what the password even is, or if you really do only have a single encrypted main volume because you handle, for example, sensitive data from clients and aren't hiding anything illegal at all.
So I guess I really don't see what the difference is. In that case, you're screwed even if you really are innocent. Maybe you really aren't doing or hiding a thing illegal, but how does even that help you in a scenario like you put forth?
The interrogator's imagination of what would happen: "Hit him with the $5 wrench. He'll give up the password."
What actually happens: "Ow! Ow! Alright, here's the password!" (Not said: To the non-hidden volume, which is seeded with things that are embarrassing but legal, explaining why I'd want to encrypt them.) Truecrypt can make an undetectable hidden volume, and the computer will behave totally "normally" if only the visible one is mounted. If anything is written to the hard drive with only the visible volume mounted, it may corrupt the hidden volume data, but it won't reveal it or show a smaller size than the size of the partition.
The critical difference in Scenario 2 is not actually reasonable suspicion. The difference in Scenario 2 is that the authorities now already know the encrypted data belongs to you, because of your friend's testimony. Decrypting it for them will not prove that you're the owner of it, they already know that.
On the other hand, if they just suspected (even with probable cause) that the encrypted partition contained evidence of malfeasance, but didn't already have conclusive proof it's yours, requiring you to decrypt the data tells them something they didn't know; namely, that you have access to that encrypted data. That's exactly where the Fifth applies. They can get a warrant for the data, but they can't force you to admit it's your data.
If they're stupid or crazy enough to joke about having a bomb in an airport, I'd prefer not to have them on the plane with me even if they don't have one.
No. It's possible that the two packages were split into 2 separate shipments due to truck capacity (as an example). Shipment #1 ships out on the last truck at the end of a business day. Overnight, a snowstorm could hit, causing Shipment #2 on the first truck out the next day to be delayed because of poor road conditions.
While that's certainly possible, if both the labelled and unlabelled package were in each case otherwise the same (sent on the same day, the same weight and size, near the same time, to/from the same location, random order whether labelled or unlabelled ships first), one would expect that, even if such splits or unforeseen events occurred, they would affect the unlabelled packages with delays roughly as often as the labelled ones. Instead, the labelled ones were affected far more frequently, to a degree that's easily into statistical significance.
A civil court would be free to decide for example that it appears your machine was pwnd by a zero day; and there is nothing therefore you could have 'reasonably' done so you have no responsibility for any damage it was used to inflict. OOTH your machine hasn't seen a patch in four years and your firewall is no-existent or configured so as to be nearly useless you could be responsible as you were negligent.
Given some of the idiotic rulings on tech cases we've seen out of courts even at the highest levels with years worth of testimony to get a clue, do you really trust your local courthouse magistrate to make technical distinctions that fine? I sure don't. That's before you even get to the expectation that everyone who purchases a computer knows how to properly configure and maintain a firewall.
Just like you'd be negligent if you left your car in neutral without the parking break applied and it rolled in to traffic while you were shopping.
No, to stretch the analogy until it screams, it's more like you left your window down. Someone then reached into the vehicle, broke the ignition switch, took off the parking brake, put the car in neutral, and gave it a good push, rolling it into traffic. They shouldn't do that, whether or not you left your window down (or even if you also left the keys in the ignition), and it is their fault for misusing someone else's property in that way. You can still argue it's not a good security practice to leave the window down and the keys in the ignition, but that doesn't give other people a license to steal or misuse the car, nor does it make the owner rather than the interloper responsible if someone does.
Leaving an un-patched, unprotected box connected to the internet is a negligent (if not legally practically).
What about "developing and selling a highly vulnerable OS"? That's A-OK, but expecting the end users to be responsible when the product is flawed is reasonable?
...you'll see that not only did he have suspicions, but that those suspicions were validated when he had to repair the mechanism to open the secret compartment, only to find it loaded with cash. And not a little bit of cash; according to the article, the reason the compartment jammed was that it was over-filled with $800,000 in cash. Anaya's reaction, from the article:
If you were handling $800,000 in cash, then even if I knew with absolute certainty that it were 100% from legal activities, I would want you to get it out of my reach and out of my sight as soon as possible, because I don't want to be suspected if some turns up missing.
If you participate in something you know to be illegal, that's conspiracy. He's not charged because he built a compartment; any activity that he would have participated in which would contribute...knowingly...to an illegal enterprise would fit the bill here. He's charged because he knew something wrong was going on, it involved him, and he said nothing to the police.
At most, he knew someone was carrying a large amount of money. That is not, in itself, an illegal act, so he had no crime to report to the police. If he had found actual drugs in the hidden stash, I'd be more inclined to agree with you.
If the criminals had somehow needed a hot fudge sundae to commit a criminal act, and he'd provided the ice cream knowing what would happen, the name of this article would be "Make a sundae, go to jail."
Sure. On the other hand, if a cashier at a Dairy Queen happened to notice a customer had a lot of cash in their wallet when they opened it up to pay for your hypothetical sundae, the cashier wouldn't have committed any crime, even if they didn't immediately run to call the police to report the non-crime of carrying a lot of cash. See the difference?
I don't see the problem here. Furthermore, Anaya had serious concerns about his customer before he even did the work in the first place..."Anaya was unsettled by this request, for he had suspicions about the nature of Esteban’s work."
Suspicions != knowledge. I'm sure he knew some of his customers purchased these compartments for drug smuggling, just as a gun manufacturer knows that a certain percentage of what they make will be used in illegal activity. However, unless the seller has particular knowledge (not suspicion!) that a particular customer explicitly intends illegal use, and goes forward with the sale anyway, they should not be on the hook for the customer's later illegal activity.
But guess what? None of that is the REAL thing he's caught for. After all of that...what happens? Esteban...the guy with almost a million dollars in cash hidden in his truck...is asked by Esteban to install a similar compartment in ANOTHER truck. I mean, come on...
Satisfied customers making more purchases and providing referrals? No one who runs a business wants that!
Yeah, maybe Esteban just had a really lucrative paper route...
Or is an antiques dealer, and wants to carry large amounts of cash so as to be able to purchase on the spot if he makes a good find, but also knows people will know his job and suspect he carries the cash. So he keeps a few thousand in marked bills in the glovebox in case of robbery to satisfy the robber, and the significant amount in the secret compartment.
Or he's a guy who inherited a ton of money, and is paranoid about the gubmint, so wants a better place to hide a good chunk of it than under the mattress.
Or he just has the money to do it and thinks having a secret compartment stuffed full of cash makes him uber-cool. From TFA, it sounds like there are a lot of celebrities that purchased these compartments from this guy for exactly that reason--because it's a cool toy, and well, because they can.
Personally I couldn't care less, I haven't found anything worth watching even for free in quite some time. The answer is the same, though-you're relying on a certain subset of people not wanting to get it for free (or ad-free), and the rest are already gone. The more inconvenient you make it, the smaller that pool becomes.
I'm afraid your analogies fail as well, and I think the post reading one does work. Here's why.
On the sideshow ride, there is no way to know, when you sneak on, if you'll be taking a seat from a paying customer or not. The important difference, though, is that it's possible you would be at all-the number of seats on the ride are limited (scarce), while the number of copies are essentially unlimited (non-scarce). That's why you can't compare copies to ride seats, or candy bars, or anything else that's limited in supply. With these marvelous machines capable of making copies at high speed of anything that can be digitized, copies of any digital information are no longer scarce, unless we artificially make them so.
Your second analogy is that of, essentially, a verbal contract between you and I. You began work on my car specifically because I promised you $100 for it. If you complete the work satisfactorily, and I stiff you on half the money, that's fraud and breach of contract.
However, that's again a flawed analogy. No one from Dreamworks called me up to say "Hey, look, we've got this great movie idea, but we wanted to negotiate what you'd pay for it before we start work." They didn't begin work on it at my request, or based on a contract and promise to pay from me. A more appropriate analogy here, to go back to car washing, would be the guys in New York that come up and start washing your windows without asking, and then expect payment. They didn't begin their work at my request, and I'm under no obligation whatsoever to pay them-I never made an agreement with them. If they do a good job, I still might out of being nice, but I'm not obligated. And that's where you say they "demand" payment-well, yes, some of them do, but in this scenario, I'm under no obligation to oblige them. Asking nicely will work much better than a demand in that scenario.
That's where we're back to the "reading the post" analogy. The person who made that post didn't contract with me to read it after it was finished. The author of that post has no obligation to pay me just because I say so. Similarly, a person who makes a movie, writes a book, etc., doesn't do so under contract with me. If I enjoy them, I probably will "drop a couple bucks in the guitar case," unless they become so obnoxious and demanding that I don't want to give them a nickel.
I generally will pay for things I like, if they're made available easily enough and without onerous DRM, and they're not through an organization pulling these shenanigans. As you said, it's not always lost sales. Several years back, my sister burned me a CD of an independent band she'd come to quite like. Well guess what? I came to quite like them as well, and since then have attended several of their shows, gotten a couple T-shirts, recommended them to others, etc. If not for that CD, I probably would never even have heard of them, and even if she'd just mentioned them, it probably wouldn't have been enough for me to seek them out and pay for a CD. Did she harm them by burning that CD, or do them a service by giving them free publicity?
The administration ought to get an 'F', given that they've approved Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean. You think it's tough to clean up a spill in the nice temperate Gulf of Mexico? Wait until we have a midwinter blowout up there, with no idea how to clean it up or even stop it.
You'd think they'd at least learn something. Apparently not.
The author, and original publisher, are both damaged by lost revenue from their more difficult endeavor of creating the original content.
You owe me $5 for going to the trouble of reading your post. I offer several means of payment, which do you prefer?
What's that you say? You don't intend to pay that? You've damaged me sir, you stole from me, that was money I could potentially have and do not! I will see you in court!
Does that sound ridiculous? I sure hope it does. Not giving someone money they could theoretically have had under certain circumstances is not the same as depriving them of property they actually currently possess. The second is theft, the first is not. Copying cannot be theft, because the original owner is not deprived of their property.
At the risk of a car analogy, imagine telling the police your neighbor stole your car, and it's in his garage right now. The officer arrives at your house, asking for a description of the stolen vehicle. You point to the car in your driveway. At this point, the officer looks confused-"Sir, did your neighbor return the car while I was driving over here?" "Well no, it's still in his garage!" "But sir, the car is in your driveway, you just pointed it out to me." "Well this one is, sure, but it's also in his garage! He bought the exact same make, model, color, everything, right down to the same leather seats!"
Sound ridiculous? That's because it is ridiculous. Theft requires that something be -taken away- from the original owner, not just that someone else has something just like it.
There isn't even an argument against that here. This guy legally acquired the books, then resold them at a higher price than he acquired them for-you know, like thousands of businesses do every day. If you're a free-market type, you ought to be the first to his defense. Going into business for himself is exactly what he did!
Then, as many here have already pointed out, they'll just bootleg them anyway. Gouge too hard, and that will always happen. It's a good check on publishers being able to arbitrarily run up prices.
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Why are you asking "statute in Texas law"? I thought I was pretty clear it was a Supreme Court ruling. (I did use an unqualified acronym for it, SCOTUS, so if that's the source of the confusion I apologize.)
Anyway, Dover v. Kitsmiller is one of the well-known and recent ones, but never reached the SCOTUS. One that did, though, is Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education. That explicitly barred even the mention of creationism as an "alternative" to evolution, let alone its explicit teaching. That went all the way to the SCOTUS after the school board was ruled against, and the SCOTUS declined to consider a reversal, so that decision became final, and with the Supreme Court refusal to reverse, became caselaw for the entire land.
Since Supreme Court decisions are sovereign over Texas law, that makes it illegal in Texas or anywhere else in the US. That stems, of course, ultimately, from the First Amendment (government may not establish/endorse religion), and the Fourteenth (rights amendments applied to state/local law as well as federal). Those are ultimately the laws at play here. I'm not sure why you think Texas law would have anything to do with it.
I'm also unsure why you think "(my) personal definitions" have force under Texas law, or where you think I claimed that. But the Supreme Court of the United States, and the US Constitution, most certainly do have legal and binding force in Texas.
Even if evolution is "part" of the state standard, teaching of creationism in a science class is forbidden by both law and definition. It was ruled by the SCOTUS, long ago, to be a religious doctrine and not a scientific theory, and it is exactly that, as it is either unfalsifiable (old-earth) or already falsified (young-earth). Any "science" class teaching creationism, is not one.
If you really need a citation for the SCOTUS ruling, I'll dig one up. But yes, I absolutely have "something to stand on" here.
Sorry, managed to screw up the link in the last post somehow, will get more coffee. Here's the corrected one: Link
No, they're not. They have that law on the books, and then they wink-wink-nudge-nudge when it gets widely broken. Even the governor admitted that they do, in reality, http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/08/18/7407124-perry-to-child-on-creationism-vs-evolution-youre-smart-enough-to-figure-out-which-is-right.
So yes, I'm concerned with what's happening in reality. Do you really think that regulation is getting consistently enforced, and teachers who violate it disciplined or fired, when even the governor is saying the direct opposite? Regulations and laws only mean anything if they are, in practice, enforced.
At least in the US, you're way out of date. Lifetime limits became illegal in 2010, under the Affordable Care Act. Annual limits may currently be no less than $2 million, and will be outlawed entirely as of 2014.
Disagreeing with the above AC is one thing. Disagreeing with established fact and reality is quite another. It is not acceptable to teach things in school that are demonstrably false.
"Texas! You did something right!"
You're a bunch of liars, hypocrites, and assholes. And do feel free to give it a shot, we have excellent anti-SLAPP provisions in my state.
At least in the US, jamming done by private entities is illegal. The RF paint? Maybe, but I can't imagine shoppers being too happy about going to a place their devices don't work. If I found out a store were doing that intentionally, I'd probably not return.
I've made it exceptionally clear that I am not available 24x7. If my boss would like me to be on call for some period, I'm willing to discuss that, but it needs to be arranged in advance for a clear time period.
If some communication is coming in for work right now, I don't even know about it and I'll handle it on Tuesday, given the 3-day weekend. Weekends are not "extra work days", they are my time to relax, unwind, and come back to the office ready to do a much better job than if I were constantly tired, fatigued, and burnt out. Ultimately, that benefits my employer, too.
Unfortunately, what people don't realize is that taxes actually do pay for things. I've literally been told by people, here in the US, that taxes are just "wasted" or "stolen" money and don't really do anything. When I ask them if they've ever driven on a public road, or attended a public school, or occupied safe and well-inspected buildings, or taken safe and well-controlled flights, they launch into rants about "inefficiency".
We live in a society, and we're supposed to care for one another, especially those most vulnerable. "I've got mine and %$)@*% you buddy" is not a recipe for a stable or pleasant society, certainly not one that I'd want to live in. And that's said as one who's at least to a reasonable degree got mine--as many of us here know, developers don't make bad money. But that doesn't ultimately mean much if society isn't kept stable and healthy.
It reminds me a great deal of Monty Python's "What have the Romans ever done for us?" sketch. Substitute "gubmint" for "Romans", and you've essentially got the same scenario.
And it boggles my mind that people think private companies bent on making as much profit as possible will provide services at a lower cost than an entity which need not make one.
Why do you think the Occupy movement scared the holy hell out of them? It wasn't because they set up tents in a few parks.
Really, neither side cares too much whether you favor the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right, so long as you're busy demonizing the other side and staying divided. That's just your required participation in the Two Minutes' Hate, citizen. But when someone came along and said "We know who's pulling the strings, and we're all here to talk to the puppeteer", well now, THAT had to be stopped.
If the interrogator has already decided you're guilty, and is going to beat/torture you regardless, I fail to see how it makes any difference even if you really did have no idea the encrypted data was on the machine and have no clue what the password even is, or if you really do only have a single encrypted main volume because you handle, for example, sensitive data from clients and aren't hiding anything illegal at all.
So I guess I really don't see what the difference is. In that case, you're screwed even if you really are innocent. Maybe you really aren't doing or hiding a thing illegal, but how does even that help you in a scenario like you put forth?
The interrogator's imagination of what would happen: "Hit him with the $5 wrench. He'll give up the password."
What actually happens: "Ow! Ow! Alright, here's the password!" (Not said: To the non-hidden volume, which is seeded with things that are embarrassing but legal, explaining why I'd want to encrypt them.) Truecrypt can make an undetectable hidden volume, and the computer will behave totally "normally" if only the visible one is mounted. If anything is written to the hard drive with only the visible volume mounted, it may corrupt the hidden volume data, but it won't reveal it or show a smaller size than the size of the partition.
The critical difference in Scenario 2 is not actually reasonable suspicion. The difference in Scenario 2 is that the authorities now already know the encrypted data belongs to you, because of your friend's testimony. Decrypting it for them will not prove that you're the owner of it, they already know that.
On the other hand, if they just suspected (even with probable cause) that the encrypted partition contained evidence of malfeasance, but didn't already have conclusive proof it's yours, requiring you to decrypt the data tells them something they didn't know; namely, that you have access to that encrypted data. That's exactly where the Fifth applies. They can get a warrant for the data, but they can't force you to admit it's your data.
If they're stupid or crazy enough to joke about having a bomb in an airport, I'd prefer not to have them on the plane with me even if they don't have one.
While that's certainly possible, if both the labelled and unlabelled package were in each case otherwise the same (sent on the same day, the same weight and size, near the same time, to/from the same location, random order whether labelled or unlabelled ships first), one would expect that, even if such splits or unforeseen events occurred, they would affect the unlabelled packages with delays roughly as often as the labelled ones. Instead, the labelled ones were affected far more frequently, to a degree that's easily into statistical significance.
Given some of the idiotic rulings on tech cases we've seen out of courts even at the highest levels with years worth of testimony to get a clue, do you really trust your local courthouse magistrate to make technical distinctions that fine? I sure don't. That's before you even get to the expectation that everyone who purchases a computer knows how to properly configure and maintain a firewall.
No, to stretch the analogy until it screams, it's more like you left your window down. Someone then reached into the vehicle, broke the ignition switch, took off the parking brake, put the car in neutral, and gave it a good push, rolling it into traffic. They shouldn't do that, whether or not you left your window down (or even if you also left the keys in the ignition), and it is their fault for misusing someone else's property in that way. You can still argue it's not a good security practice to leave the window down and the keys in the ignition, but that doesn't give other people a license to steal or misuse the car, nor does it make the owner rather than the interloper responsible if someone does.
What about "developing and selling a highly vulnerable OS"? That's A-OK, but expecting the end users to be responsible when the product is flawed is reasonable?
If you were handling $800,000 in cash, then even if I knew with absolute certainty that it were 100% from legal activities, I would want you to get it out of my reach and out of my sight as soon as possible, because I don't want to be suspected if some turns up missing.
At most, he knew someone was carrying a large amount of money. That is not, in itself, an illegal act, so he had no crime to report to the police. If he had found actual drugs in the hidden stash, I'd be more inclined to agree with you.
Sure. On the other hand, if a cashier at a Dairy Queen happened to notice a customer had a lot of cash in their wallet when they opened it up to pay for your hypothetical sundae, the cashier wouldn't have committed any crime, even if they didn't immediately run to call the police to report the non-crime of carrying a lot of cash. See the difference?
Suspicions != knowledge. I'm sure he knew some of his customers purchased these compartments for drug smuggling, just as a gun manufacturer knows that a certain percentage of what they make will be used in illegal activity. However, unless the seller has particular knowledge (not suspicion!) that a particular customer explicitly intends illegal use, and goes forward with the sale anyway, they should not be on the hook for the customer's later illegal activity.
Satisfied customers making more purchases and providing referrals? No one who runs a business wants that!
Or is an antiques dealer, and wants to carry large amounts of cash so as to be able to purchase on the spot if he makes a good find, but also knows people will know his job and suspect he carries the cash. So he keeps a few thousand in marked bills in the glovebox in case of robbery to satisfy the robber, and the significant amount in the secret compartment.
Or he's a guy who inherited a ton of money, and is paranoid about the gubmint, so wants a better place to hide a good chunk of it than under the mattress.
Or he just has the money to do it and thinks having a secret compartment stuffed full of cash makes him uber-cool. From TFA, it sounds like there are a lot of celebrities that purchased these compartments from this guy for exactly that reason--because it's a cool toy, and well, because they can.
Or he's just rich a
Then you have free to torrent. And?
Personally I couldn't care less, I haven't found anything worth watching even for free in quite some time. The answer is the same, though-you're relying on a certain subset of people not wanting to get it for free (or ad-free), and the rest are already gone. The more inconvenient you make it, the smaller that pool becomes.
I'm afraid your analogies fail as well, and I think the post reading one does work. Here's why.
On the sideshow ride, there is no way to know, when you sneak on, if you'll be taking a seat from a paying customer or not. The important difference, though, is that it's possible you would be at all-the number of seats on the ride are limited (scarce), while the number of copies are essentially unlimited (non-scarce). That's why you can't compare copies to ride seats, or candy bars, or anything else that's limited in supply. With these marvelous machines capable of making copies at high speed of anything that can be digitized, copies of any digital information are no longer scarce, unless we artificially make them so.
Your second analogy is that of, essentially, a verbal contract between you and I. You began work on my car specifically because I promised you $100 for it. If you complete the work satisfactorily, and I stiff you on half the money, that's fraud and breach of contract.
However, that's again a flawed analogy. No one from Dreamworks called me up to say "Hey, look, we've got this great movie idea, but we wanted to negotiate what you'd pay for it before we start work." They didn't begin work on it at my request, or based on a contract and promise to pay from me. A more appropriate analogy here, to go back to car washing, would be the guys in New York that come up and start washing your windows without asking, and then expect payment. They didn't begin their work at my request, and I'm under no obligation whatsoever to pay them-I never made an agreement with them. If they do a good job, I still might out of being nice, but I'm not obligated. And that's where you say they "demand" payment-well, yes, some of them do, but in this scenario, I'm under no obligation to oblige them. Asking nicely will work much better than a demand in that scenario.
That's where we're back to the "reading the post" analogy. The person who made that post didn't contract with me to read it after it was finished. The author of that post has no obligation to pay me just because I say so. Similarly, a person who makes a movie, writes a book, etc., doesn't do so under contract with me. If I enjoy them, I probably will "drop a couple bucks in the guitar case," unless they become so obnoxious and demanding that I don't want to give them a nickel.
I generally will pay for things I like, if they're made available easily enough and without onerous DRM, and they're not through an organization pulling these shenanigans. As you said, it's not always lost sales. Several years back, my sister burned me a CD of an independent band she'd come to quite like. Well guess what? I came to quite like them as well, and since then have attended several of their shows, gotten a couple T-shirts, recommended them to others, etc. If not for that CD, I probably would never even have heard of them, and even if she'd just mentioned them, it probably wouldn't have been enough for me to seek them out and pay for a CD. Did she harm them by burning that CD, or do them a service by giving them free publicity?
The administration ought to get an 'F', given that they've approved Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean. You think it's tough to clean up a spill in the nice temperate Gulf of Mexico? Wait until we have a midwinter blowout up there, with no idea how to clean it up or even stop it.
You'd think they'd at least learn something. Apparently not.
You owe me $5 for going to the trouble of reading your post. I offer several means of payment, which do you prefer?
What's that you say? You don't intend to pay that? You've damaged me sir, you stole from me, that was money I could potentially have and do not! I will see you in court!
Does that sound ridiculous? I sure hope it does. Not giving someone money they could theoretically have had under certain circumstances is not the same as depriving them of property they actually currently possess. The second is theft, the first is not. Copying cannot be theft, because the original owner is not deprived of their property.
At the risk of a car analogy, imagine telling the police your neighbor stole your car, and it's in his garage right now. The officer arrives at your house, asking for a description of the stolen vehicle. You point to the car in your driveway. At this point, the officer looks confused-"Sir, did your neighbor return the car while I was driving over here?" "Well no, it's still in his garage!" "But sir, the car is in your driveway, you just pointed it out to me." "Well this one is, sure, but it's also in his garage! He bought the exact same make, model, color, everything, right down to the same leather seats!"
Sound ridiculous? That's because it is ridiculous. Theft requires that something be -taken away- from the original owner, not just that someone else has something just like it.
There isn't even an argument against that here. This guy legally acquired the books, then resold them at a higher price than he acquired them for-you know, like thousands of businesses do every day. If you're a free-market type, you ought to be the first to his defense. Going into business for himself is exactly what he did!
Then, as many here have already pointed out, they'll just bootleg them anyway. Gouge too hard, and that will always happen. It's a good check on publishers being able to arbitrarily run up prices.