1.) If the item is being given away for free, there can still be infringement.
2.) If a person would never purchase an item at the available price (due to the law of supply and demand for example), that person might still infringe. No revenue was lost or gained since the transaction would never have completed at the existing price.
In either of those cases, no revenue was "stolen", but infringement still occurred. These are some of the many reasons that stealing isn't a good way to describe copyright infringement.
So it is "stealing" to produce a superior, cheaper, but otherwise virtually identical product or service that sells better and displaces a competitor's revenue? Strange, I thought that was the whole basis of market economics.
The revenue was lost.
Look at legal web sites. There is a specific vocabulary.
The language you are using is from what I call "Mcadonalds Journalism" sites who have a vested interest in vilifying anyone who infringes. By politicising the language, these sites use emotive language to sway your views.
I'm sure these are articles on this. It's similar to yellow journalism.
