[wormwood28]

Really? I'm starting to feel the opposite: that these arguments by definition are getting tedious and deliberately miss the point. In much the same vein as the "marriage is only between a man and woman" variety.

The English verb "to steal" is certainly capable of meaning "to take without the right" regardless of whether physical property is involved. Not to mention the myriad of common idioms, like "So-and-so stole my idea." What else are people trying to express by its use in this case?

It's clear that the issue here is their legal right to exclusive distribution and transmission (or "state granted monopoly", if you prefer) of their work, not whether or not they "still have a copy". It can be disagreed with, but they have it and others distributing their work without permission diminishes it.

Not saying I disagree with you that it's the wrong way to go about things, but, I think if one is being honest, the argument over the use of word is telling on both sides and that some people are clearly trying to demonize those who use the word, in the same way that they feel they are being demonized by its use against them.

[demigod]

Yes, both sides are playing with semantics and what's more important is that, like a lot of questions of law breaking this boils down to question of rights and doing something which you clearly have no right to. Im not supporting the recording industry in any way but nobody has the rights to intrude upon someone else's, be it a recording company, and if you dont like the way they do things you have the right to refrain from doing business with them, not pirate their stuff.