Agree with GingerK. When people freely snap photos of pages in magazines they haven't purchased, to me, that's stealing. I wonder how they would feel if someone did the same thing after they'd spent hours, weeks, months, designing a quilt, computing yardage and developing pattern instructions? Would they give away their hard work? It's akin to people illegally downloading music they haven't paid for. It's all reprehensible.
At the quilt shop where I worked, we had no issues approaching people and asking them to put away their phones when we saw they were about to attempt to photograph pages in a book or magazine. Sometimes people just don't realize what impact that has until it's explained to them.
Off my soapbox now...and I agree with all of you that magazine issues that sit on the newsstand all wrapped up is a bad marketing decision on the part of the publisher. NOW I'm off my soapbox!!