> the kitten "stole" their heart. > the actor "stole" the show > A team has... "stolen" the game These examples are all obviously metaphorical and irrelevant

> the kitten "stole" their heart. > the actor "stole" the show > A team has... "stolen" the game These examples are all obviously metaphorical and irrelevant, unless you want to talk about metaphorically stealing from people, which I don't understand to be the point of this thread. > Mallory "stole" his fiancé Bob has been deprived of his fiancé. > the rival company "stole" your secret formula > crackers gain access... the data was "stolen" These are the only two relevant examples, and they're sufficiently debatable that it's unlikely you'd be able to prosecute either for theft or larceny. In the case of the crackers breaching an email list, many laws are broken, but I doubt "theft," or anything like it, would be one of them. In the case of the corporate espionage, if this is theft, it's theft of intellectual property. And that makes it the most direct comparison to content piracy, but it doesn't advance the conversation because it's the same debate.