[cmiles74]

The comment about the language is important and, in my opinion, often overlooked. We can joke about how no one pirating "Modern Family" has ever made anyone "walk the plank", but the fact is this language lets the media paint anyone who downloads content without paying (often, they cannot pay) as someone deserving of harsh punishment. Like it or not, the criminality of the pirates of the high seas is being associated with anyone that visits a Bittorrent tracker and downloads some content. In the eyes of many, "hiding" behind a VPN service only compounds this criminality.

I think microcolonel is making an important point: it's all hyperbole and in almost all cases, there is no injured party. Certainly I am not arguing that it is right, or without a moral gray area. But it's certainly not on the same level as physical theft.