But it's a felony.
If you don't want a felony, don't illegally stream? You don't get to do whatever you want just because it's easily done sitting in front of your computer without pants on.
As much as the media companies have done to villify themselves in the past decade (and more), that doesn't change the fact that their claims to material are real, and are worth some amount of money. Those are facts. In many cases, such as PPV fights or sporting events, much of the value comes via exclusivity.
By illegally streaming such shows, you are, in real terms, diluting the value of their rights to that material. I realize this isn't a popular opinion among many people. However, it doesn't change the reality you're not entitled to take whatever you want from companies simply because it's socially acceptable. There are consequences to your actions. In this case, the consequences turn out to be a felony charge.
One final edit before this post becomes completely invisible:
Read the amendment, for fuck's sake. The vast majority of respondents here are having a knee-jerk emotional reaction that doesn't actually reflect what's in the amendment.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s978is/pdf/BILLS-112s9...
You're not going to jail for watching Hangover 2 a couple of times. You're going to be facing potential jailtime and fines for streaming it to a sufficient number of people with the intent of making a profit off of it.
Surely the law should follow society, rather than society following the law.
Despite what we all may wish would be the case, it's not socially acceptable to deprive rights holders and content producers of the financial value of their rights/content. The notion of rights to content takes primacy over the notion of streaming UFC 500 or whatever they're up to now.
Not that there aren't first principles to evolve laws from, but those first principles are very bare, and most of what we decide people should do, and most of the rights we grant (key word) to persons or entities are decided by interpretations of situation based on what we want society to be shaped like.
This is not to say that the government ought to serve as business's proxy in all cases.
(And since the "entertainment industry" is hardly going to rescue the U.S. economy, I really don't give much of a cr-p about its fortunes -- which it already bolsters by producing things in Canada, Ireland, now Eastern Europe or wherever else, whenever it can.)
I'm questioning the classification of crimes. Felonies are serious and primarily intended for removing violent criminals from the grid. Felons can't vote, can't buy guns/ammo, can't obtain most vocational licenses, can't obtain visas abroad with most US partners, and can't easily find jobs anymore.
Felony status should be reserved for people who are a danger to society, not just a danger to a record labels and publisher contracts. Socially acceptable (accepted by society) crimes shouldn't be felonies -- that's a direct collision with the purpose of a felony! And a special interest group shouldn't be able to lobby for elevated crime classifications like this.