Your second, third, and fourth sentences do not support your first. Copying software without paying for it (when the author has not licensed you to do so) is arguably immoral, often unethical, and nearly always illegal...
...but the claim of the gp was that it is not "theft" as such. Copying something from someone and taking something away from someone are not the same.
Drawing a definitional distinction there helps us to have a meaningful debate about the moral, ethical, and legal dimensions; the only benefit to muddying the distinction is as a rhetorical tactic to confuse the issues.
...but the claim of the gp was that it is not "theft" as such. Copying something from someone and taking something away from someone are not the same.
Drawing a definitional distinction there helps us to have a meaningful debate about the moral, ethical, and legal dimensions; the only benefit to muddying the distinction is as a rhetorical tactic to confuse the issues.