When Bob puts in labour in order to make financial gain, and Tom takes the fruit of Bob's labour without paying what Bob has set the work of his labour as being worth.
Adding a parameter X to your definition expands it as follows:
> When Bob invests labor into X to generate financial gain, and Tom utilizes the results of Bob's labor on X without compensating Bob at his requested rate.
However, this definition becomes problematic for many values of X. Consider cases such as:
* Fashion styles
* Business models or store layouts
* Factory or house designs
* Cake decorating techniques
* Cooking methods
* Agricultural practices
In these examples and many others, the concept of "owning" the fruits of one's labor becomes murky. *Intellectual property laws were originally conceived to benefit society as a whole, not just individuals.* As our understanding of innovation and creativity evolves, we may find that some communities flourish better with more flexible approaches to intellectual property.
But Bob was paid. That's the point. Also most of 'intellectual' property is owned by corporations, not the creators.
If Bob prints a book and you take it without paying for it, that's stealing. If Bob prints a book and you buy it from Bob and you make copies of it and give it to your friends, that isn't stealing. And it shouldn't be classified as stealing, morally or legally.
The only reason it is considered illegal is because greedy corporate interests decided to make it so. Historically, people bought books and copied it and spread it around. That was the norm until fairly recently.
'Intellectual property' is theft. It is a fiction invented by the parasite class. Just think about it.
Bob's pay rate was agreed upon based on getting X number of sales, not one book.
You are promoting the parasiting off Bobs labor. You can try to justify it, but Bob worked expecting to get paid from those transactions, and they were taken away away because it was technologically easy to do. Bob/society expected payment to occur.
