Even in that example, the artist or other content producer has the right to make the first sale. If someone can steal the music or TV show or whatever and make it available for free, then the creator can not make any money on his or her product. It costs a lot to create this stuff and the studios will go under if they can not generate revenues distributing their product.
Intellectual property rights are just as important as physical property rights and much harder to protect.
In an age when users can create infinite, unrestricted, pristine copies of the work, copyright doesn't exist...or does it?
The only leverage the creator has are access fees, licensing, advertising dollars and other revenue ancillary to the actual product. Its as if the actual work is now simply a vehicle to drive the revenue streams....which ironically doesn't include the work (mechanical rights).
However, that's a tremendous amount of money when you break it down. Nobody's going to go broke.