There was no revenue or profit stolen. The copyright holder had an exclusive license (a legal monopoly) to copy/sell/distribute their work, which is essentially

There was no revenue or profit stolen. The copyright holder had an exclusive license (a legal monopoly) to copy/sell/distribute their work, which is essentially a legal contract we've all agreed to as a society. The copyright infringer is guilty of violating the terms of that agreement. But violating terms and theft are not the same thing. > Let’s say you write a book. I copy its pdf and sell it without your permission. You really think there is nothing immoral here? Sure, that offends my moral sensibilities. But it's still not theft. That said, I think it's a gray area. Let's say you develop a recipe and start cooking it for people. Perhaps you're the first person to ever make chicken parmigiana. Then I copy that recipe and start my own restaurant that sells chicken parmigiana. Does that feel immoral to you? Probably not, because we've grown up in a world where (due to arbitrary cultural traditions) we're okay with "stealing" creative food recipes but not creative musical or story elements. My personal moral intuition is that, the more complex a creation gets, the more I feel it's immoral to copy it. For example I'm less upset at someone who copies a riff from a song, or at someone who writes fan fiction, than I am at someone who copies a book wholesale and tries to pass it off as their own.