What you said is similar to the MPAA commercials. It even has your stolen television analogy in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU I hope you only watched entertainment that you paid for. Otherwise you broke the law.

How much control does the state and corporations have over people?

The harsher the penalties are for trivial things, like copying data, the more of a stranglehold corporations & the state have over people. IMO, copying data is a copyright issue, not a criminal matter. Freedom should not be taken away. In recent history, there have been a flood of laws that take away freedom from the American people to enforce corporate "property". If you open your eyes, you can see the direction that this leads.

To take your jaywalking example further, if jaywalking involves life sentences, it gives the police the option to selectively enforce the rules. Most people have jaywalked in their lifetime. The police & criminal justice system can arrest & prosecute people they don't like & leave the people they do like alone.

The RIAA tried to make downloading movies a criminal matter. They lobbied hard. It was only the vigilance of the world's citizens that prevented mass arrests.

We see this happening with the war on drugs. The war on drugs is used to oppress African Americans and for the profit of the prison & police industrial complex. Companies that build & operate prisons make a lot of money from taxpayers because there are a lot of prisoners for things that should not be crimes. The war on drugs was never about the health & safety of Americans. That is just slick marketing.