There ought to be a rule that when someone reaches for the dictionary in a debate they've already lost. I keep seeing this on HN - a dictionary is probably the worst place go find out about what a word really means.
I hear people say "They stole my idea!" or if they hear a familiar melody, "They stole that from The Doors!"
So the dictionary agrees with the common use of steal in the realm of intellectual property. It's really the proponents of copyright violation who have redefined stealing to exclude copyrighted digital media.
It's all framing, I'd be happy if we stopped arguing over the word "steal" all the damned time instead of addressing the finer points of copyright and its role in our society.
The people who will whip out dictionaries over "steal" are crudely trying to inject an emotional response into the debate and trying to override rational discourse with rhetoric.
The people who are constantly whipping out "you still have it" are naively pretending that, just because it doesn't fit within all the criteria of physical theft, it also means that the other moral concerns associated with it are equally moot.
tl;dr: Both sides of the "stealing!" debate are being incredibly disingenuous.
