Exactly, how is this any different than black boxes on airplanes? It isn't.

It's more invasive and personal than a blackbox. The NTSB wants cameras in cockpits of planes, but the pilots don't want them.

Maybe you count them by machine but you always have the fallback of machine counting.

Perhaps you meant "fallback of human counting." For simplicity:
1. The voter selects a candidate on a touch-screen tablet.
2. The tablet prints out the vote selection on a piece of paper. This ensures a valid vote has been cast by the voter.
3. Voter deposits paper into a box along with other votes.
4. A computer with a scanner rapidly scans the paper votes after the box is emptied into the counting machine.
5. Humans manually recount votes using paper votes if any discrepancy in the vote count is found.

The TL;DR version is use printers to cast machine-readable paper votes.

Isn't this what open source is all about, freedom? So take the source code and remove the data-collecting code and recompile. Otherwise, what good is open source?

Even if you pay a monthly subscription, there will always be ads. See cable TV as an example.

Perhaps not directly, but don't they get scholarships?

if you're allowed on the movie set, allowed to take pictures there.. no contract was made and the pictures are not a work for hire.

But will any movie studio allow strangers to capture video of all their movie scenes on their set and then release that (edited) video for free or commercial use? I highly doubt it. Such a video would dilute/harm the value of the movie released by the studio.

Movies cost money to make. Actors are paid.

I think the school's argument is along similar lines. The school has to pay to rent, maintenance and other fees to organize the sporting event at the stadium. It also has to pay long term for coaches/trainers, training area and equipment to train its football player students. So it's a huge cost in time and money to organize this event.

All the kid did was spend a few hours taking pictures with a cheap camera and make oodles of money off someone else's work -- therefore he's a leech.

but has a restriction on the use of photographs taken at a sporting event and subsequently used for commercial gain ever been tested in court?

Why restrict the question to sporting events when there are already general guidelines for photographing strangers (athletes in this case)?

http://www.photocoachpro.com/h...

the rights to it are a separate matter from recording real life events.

Here are the restrictions for cameras at the Olympics:

IOW, there are restrictions against taking commercial quality photos/videos at many/most sporting events, unless you pay or get permission.

So a shopping mall would be a public place under our law.

Interesting... So under this law, you can go into all mall shops, take pictures of their products on shelves, and post that on the internet without the shop owners going all "school principal" on you?

That's like saying a bootlegger goes into a movie theater, records a movie with his smartphone/video recorder and sells it at a price he likes. And that's perfectly legal, according to you.

In this analogy,
Student = bootlegger
Athletes = actors in movie
School = copyright owner/producer of movie

I think copyright should be shared between the school and the individual athletes. After all, the school organized and funded (invested) these events. But the principal claiming 100% copyright on the events is a total greedy grab.

That doesn't work. Oregon can't tax the miles you drive outside Oregon--the US Constitution explicitly forbids state taxation of anything outside the state.

That's easy... set up interstate toll gates that record odometer reading when you leave the state and another reading recorded when you enter the state.

total yearly odometer distance - out of state distance from toll readings = Oregon miles

Then pay taxes based on the Oregon miles. No need for big brother GPS.

If cost is an issue, the state it could do it piece-by-piece. Say, do it for 5-10% of the roads every time it lays down new asphalt. The money saved over time can help quickly make all city roads concrete.

The solution is exceedingly simple. Don't use a regular socket to charge electric cars. Instead use a special metered socket that only cars can use, not other appliances like computers or refrigerators. That way, you can add a "gas/road" tax based on kWh charged by a car. It's very similar to the current gas tax.