Piracy and Theft - Is there a difference?

It is often claimed that "piracy is theft".  For example, it has been claimed that illegally downloading music is the moral equivalent of stealing a CD from a record shop?

The image above makes an important point.  Theft, in law, is the taking away of another person's property with the intention of permanently depriving that person of possession.  Music piracy apparently involves the duplication of property, not the removal of it.

However, it does need to be recognised that authors, musicians, movie companies, software companies, and so on, rely on royalties for their living.  Surely widespread piracy involves the removal of those royalties.

It gets even more complicated though.  Many people buy some music legally and illegally download other music.  For many people, if illegal downloading were not available, they would simply have smaller music collections.  It is not true to claim that every illegal download represents a loss to the copyright holder because people who illegally download music would not necessarily legally purchase it if illegal downloading were not available.

My conscience was not particularly troubled when I download music illegally that I have previously purchased legally on vinyl or cassette.  Should I really be expected to pay the artist again simply for changing formats?

Does it matter if I illegally download a movie that has been shown on TV?  I could legally watch it for free at a scheduled time and it is also legal to record it from the TV and skip past the adverts.  If the movie is shown on the BBC, haven't I have already paid for my viewing by obtaining a TV licence?

On the other hand, some piracy clearly is damaging.  In some countries, most computer software is pirated and even large business organisations rarely pay for their software licenses, causing a significant loss to the software producers.  There are also some people who never pay for any of the music they listen to or for the movies they watch.  This is unfair and it does represent a loss of income for those who hold the intellectual property.

"Piracy is theft" is probably too simplistuic a slogan but it is probably also too simplistuic to argue that piracy is mere duplication.