The courts could not possibly let off every Tom, Dick & Harry that walks into a court room and claims "I didn't know". You will still be held accountable for fraud regardless if your simply stupid of the laws. Unless your feeble minded or mentally ill, you may get some leniancy, but it's no guarantee.
Folks, this discussion of moving and fraud suffers from the same problem that all other threads about this suffer from: none of you know anything about the actual law.
When someone says "moving" is "breaking the law" because it is "fraud," that person is at best being unclear, and at worst doesn't know anything. There are two kinds of "illegality" in the world. When most people hear the word "illegal," they think of a crime. But in its broadest sense, something is "illegal" when one violates a known legal duty. Not all violations of legal duties are crimes. For example, breaking a contract is "illegal" in the sense that it violates a known legal duty (performing the contract). But it is certainly not a crime (if it was, every pro sports team and every pro sports coach would be in jail, since they quit and/or get fired in violation of their contract terms every day of the year). Committing a tort (e.g., negligently injuring someone or their property) is also illegal, but it is not a crime (otherwise, everyone who had ever been in an auto fender-bender would be in jail, too). Instead, most violations of legal duties result in some kind of civil liability (e.g., damages to the other party or an injunction against further violations of one's duties).
Fraud CAN be a crime, but it is not always so (actually, it is rarely so). Criminal fraud always requires an element of theft. If you defraud someone out of their money or property, that is a crime. The federal crime of mail fraud, for example, requires that you essentially steal someone's money or property through fraud. Movers, however, are not stealing, since they are paying for their service. Ergo, moving is not a crime.
Moving IS a violation of your service contract with the DBS provider. It is "illegal" in the civil sense, not in the criminal sense. In theory, a "mover" would be liable in damages to the DBS company for having violated the service contract. But since the "mover" paid for service, there are no damages to collect. A "mover" might also be liable for damages to the local affiliates who lost revenue as a result of the mover's actions. In this case, however, it would be virtually impossible for the local affiliate to prove what the damages are (exactly how would you prove the value of the loss of a single viewer? Ratings? But they aren't accurate to the single viewer level). So as a practical matter, the real legal liability that a mover faces is that the DBS company will find out, cut them off, and possibly cancel their service (though the DBS company has very little incentive to cancel a paying customer!).
So . . . is moving "illegal"? Yes. But only in the civil sense of that word. It is civil fraud, that results in a breach of contract. It is not a crime unless it is somehow coupled with stealing, which is not the case with movers (as opposed to pirates, who steal service without paying for it). No one is going to jail for "moving" because it simply does not violate any criminal laws. In theory, it could subject the mover to civil damages for breach of contract, but for the reasons laid out above, that isn't going to happen.
So, "moving" is pretty much a matter of the individual's moral compass. My own view on moving is pretty simple: let the person who never violates a speed limit (which IS a crime, by the way), never J-walks (also a crime), never has a parking ticket, etc., cast that first stone.
John C.