Piracy is theft

[4] In copyright law, infringement does not refer to theft of physical objects that take away the owner's possession, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.

[5] Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft.

[4] For instance, the United States Supreme Court held in Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property.

Instead, "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud.

[6] The Software & Information Industry Association has claimed that "piracy is stealing," even in light of the legal difference between copyright infringement and theft.

A common explanation for why copyright infringement isn't theft is that the original copyright holder still possesses the work they made, unlike the theft of an object.