I like the euphemism 'while foraging for copper wire'. Maybe we should use that phrase for torrents 'piracy?!? - no, don't be silly - I was just foraging for movies'.
Pulling up unused copper cables for scrap is a common means of making money in the former Soviet Union. Some entrepreneurs have even used tractors to wrench out hundreds of metres of cable from the former nuclear testing ground at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.