Piracy explicitly is not stealing. Theft requires denying the owner of the ability to use the thing that is stolen. Copyright infringement does not meet this bar, and is not a crime in the vast majority of cases. Commercial copyright infringement is the only offense classed as a crime, which in a nutshell is piracy for profit ie selling pirated material.
Media Piracy is copyright infringement, which is totally not stealing.
The US Supreme Court taking content out of the public domain so that it can be reserved for private use isn't stealing either, but it causes more harm than piracy.
I don't know man. Where I live the law says it's not stealing. It says: legal to share, illegal to share for profit. On other words: legal to share, illegal to sell.
I honestly don't care about the legality. Plus I come from a country where we have way bigger issues to deal with than piracy.
All I care about is coming up with ways to make sure my friends watch some of the stuff I recommend to them. Best way is still going "hey, check out this cool new show. Yes it's on saltyflix"
It's a lot earlier when you realize that everyone else is going to treat this world like a smash and grab regardless of what you do. These companies included especially.
"But I want to support those little poor billionares, who's going to look after their livehood and ethical buisness?"
The more you pay for big brands, whatever product you buy, be it clothes, food, or any form of knowledge, the more you drive up the sales, the more you reinforce the idea that money is a tool only a few chosen are rightful of having, just like the riches and the labour of the many. (Buy from local producers as much as you can)
Ironically enough, pirating makes people more aware of what it consumes, what labor is and mostly to get to support creators directly for what they put out. You can't steal from corporations, you only get back the unpaid /underpaid labour of many. Quality content and effort should be rewarded, so please support/help your creators in any way you can.
I am proud of pirating and I don't get why people who also pirate would have a problem with that. Like you think it's wrong and do it anyway, but think people who don't think it's wrong are cringe somehow? What's wrong with standing up for what you believe in?
Using commercial software without paying for it is, in general, stealing.
But here are a bunch of things that are not stealing:
Using commercial software on a country other than where it was made available for sale
Using commercial software after the vendor no longer wants you to
Using commercial software in ways the vendor doesn't like, such as on a device the vendor doesn't approve of
Using commercial software on multiple devices, provided you use it on only one of them at a time
Making a backup copy of commercial software so you don't lose it if the original copy is lost
Giving others a copy of commercial software that is no longer available for sale
Modifying commercial software to make it more enjoyable, such as by removing user-hostile misfeatures
Reverse engineering commercial software to learn how it works
Note that several of these items (such as cracking cheat protection in a multiplayer game) enable you to use commercial software in a way that unfairly harms others (such as cheating in a multiplayer game). That's not stealing, but it is wrong in other ways.
The way I see it is that piracy IS stealing. Not of the digital items but of the income that they potentially would have had.
But I just don't give a fuck