It is actually true, in the UK at least the legal definition of theft includes the deprivation of the owner of the property in question.
The copyright lobby hedge the term as "copyright theft" (i.e. not actual theft) in order to shift the societal understanding. Whish appears to have worked.
This is not a value judgement on copyright infringement. Just that technically it doesn't meet the legal definition of theft.
cf. The rather amusing satire of the "you wouldn't steal a handbag" campaign in the UK, which ran "you wouldn't download a bear!"
Actually it's not theft in the US, it's intellectual property rights infringement. The way you're defining it memes are theft. There is also a thing called fair use when you don't use a significant portion of a copyrighted work, which is why memes and using small bits of code aren't infringement when you use them in different context.
Oh, then today I learned! I didn't realise they were different. Just looked it up in a "plain English dictionary of law" and the distinction seems subtle but important. Rather than "with the intention of depriving the owner", the US one says "with the intention of converting it to their use", which seems broad enough to cover exploiting a copy, rather than the original (or only, in the physical realm...)
Oh Idunno, it "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is"...
> Rather than "with the intention of depriving the owner", the US one says "with the intention of converting it to their use", which seems broad enough to cover exploiting a copy
...or rather, on the meaning of "converting". I've always theought of that as "changing", i.e. "it used to be one thing, and now it's something else". But copying IP only adds a use of it, it doesn't fundamentally change it in this sense: it is still available for the original proprietor's use. Is that really "converted"?
At least for the ordinary-English uuage of the word, I think it could be argued that it isn't. But then maybe this isn't just English; maybe the word "converting" also has some term-of-trade definition in that dictionary?
The US definition seems more robust, as otherwise, I could somehow steal something you built (e.g. a farm) and then generously allow you to continue using it, perhaps for a fee. You would therefore not be deprived of it but I would still be the new owner or user.
It seems unlikely this distinction would ever matter in a real court though.
That's simply not true. You might be confusing idealism about software freedom with how both law and society define theft.
Edit: In this comment I refer to the US.