[mbyrne]

Question for the article author: Could you explain why "piracy" is not also a nonsense metaphor?

Piracy is an act of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea.

It feels like 99% of arguments are between people who haven't clearly defined the meaning of words they are arguing over.

[MichaelGG]

I believe nowadays "piracy" isn't being used as a metaphor at all, it's just a re-purposing of a word. No one is conflating the act of sea robbery with copyright infringement. No one is saying "Our navies need more funding because of these pirates." With "theft", there's no metaphor being used. It's trying to set things up to use theft as a synonym for copyright infringement.