[pmoriarty]

"Then took what they wanted."

The word "took" when applied to physical objects implies that only one person (the one who took it) has that object, and the one it was taken from no longer has it.

In the digital world that can only happen if the original is deleted or destroyed, which does not happen in the case of a copy or a "pirating". The original is still in the possession of the "owner", but now also in the possession of the copier. The "owner" does not lose his own copy, so nothing is "taken" from him.

It's analogous, in the physical world, to making a photograph of a photograph. The original photograph still exists, and the "owner" of the original photograph does not have anything "taken" from them by the existence of a copy in the possession of someone else (except perhaps in the legal or potential sense -- depending on the laws, the jurisdiction, and the interpretation of those laws -- but certainly not in any kind of physical sense).

[Fogest]

I like your photocopying example. I have personally used the library on my school campus to sign out some temporary textbooks they have on hold so that I can take a couple pictures of pages I need, and use those for my classes. Is the publisher losing anything? No, because I was never going to go pay $200 so I could read a couple pages from their textbook.