I guess "steal" means that it's a more advanced way of "copying", i.e. you can get away with grabbing others' idea without being noticed and can still be consid

I guess "steal" means that it's a more advanced way of "copying", i.e. you can get away with grabbing others' idea without being noticed and can still be considered as "original". To do that, one needs to get the essence, the principle, and the deep underlying logic of another work, rather than simply copying something at the surface level.