[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

TV "content" is not property; it is copyright - a limited monopoly power granted and enforced by the US government for publicly useful purposes, as specified in the US Constitution. In fact, AFAIK, DirecTV does not "own" most of the copyrighted material it broadcasts (media conglomorates do); what it does "own" is the DirecTV service itself. Please don't confuse a business model, a service, or copyright/patents, etc., with real property. Copyrights are government enforced monoplies of limited duration. This is an important distinction to make, whether you think DirecTV is on the right side of this issue, or not. As to business models, the government is under no obligation to enforce or preserve anyone's business model, no matter how much money their lobbys give to politicians.

[glennaro]

I understand (and appreciate) your clarification. The specific property I was referring to was the access card, the proprietary software contained therein, and the signal itself.