There is one: lobbying.
If we don't take money out of politics our country is going to go down for good.
Yes, its disgustingly over the top, but then, what isn't these days?
As I understand Texas law (which I wouldn't surprise to find judicially nullified someday, like similar Oklahoma law), you are allowed to use lethal force on someone stealing your property after a verbal warning.
Which is in no way analogous to the point you're making. US law very much does not support "self-help" as its called to redress wrongs after the fact.
Basically if I google "watch Xyz online" I will get a long list of results where I'm 2 clicks away from watching Xyz - how am I supposed to know which of those are legal sources? For some movies the top result can be youtube. For others it will be watchseries.{whatever tld they use this month}. Unless everyone makes all their agreements and contracts public, I can't reasonably tell if they are allowed to redistribute.
Fraud is about money, and money is issued by the state. As such, fraud is a crime against the state and thus considered as serious by the state.
If we view copyright as an granted monopoly by the state, then declaring it as a felony would follow a historical pattern. As a property hover, it does not.
Of course that takes an informed electorate, which...well that's another topic entirely.
Today we can see the results: "Police" armed with assault rifles patrol streets. Surprise visits at night by men armed with fully automatic firearms and large caliber sniper rifles is not considered abnormal. Most recently we now know all of our communications are monitored, as are our whereabouts past and present.
It would make a good science fiction movie, except the genre would be a documentary.
How do I know this? Because copyright law targets, and always has targeted, those distributing copyrighted material without license rather than those consuming it. One of the reasons is, as a comment elsewhere makes evident [1], it is not the responsibility of the consumer to know whether goods being purchased have been legally procured.
Where this gets tricky is in Bittorrent swarms, unless you leech, each peer uploads as well as downloads content, making each user a party to the "distribution" of content. This is what enabled those famous P2P lawsuits which resulted in those fines.
People like to think of the RIAA and MPAA as stupid dinosaurs, but as comments here make it clear, they've been undeniably successful in getting people to associate "downloading" with "illegal activity".
I don't think that's completely accurate. This effort would expose sites and services to secondary liability for the actions of their users.
A bit excessive? Throw the streamers in with the murderers and rapist, they'll come out better people.
these people really want total control over flow of information.
The US Trademark and Patent Office is expected to take a pro-copyright stance. The "Administration" reference, refers to Eric Holder's petition to Congress here: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/493524-AG_Holder_Ju...
>>> Asked by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) why Justice felt it needed that expanded power, Holder said that sometimes such streaming involves thousands and millions of dollars. He said that Justice wasn't looking to turn streaming from a misdemeanor to a crime, but that in some cases it needed that added power "consistent with the nature of the harm."
At most, the "Obama Administration" (specifically, Eric Holder) feels like some forms of streaming need to be punished more harshly. It seems like pirating a live performance is less punishable than pirating anything else.
