You basically proved my point, and we agree: Stealing is taking something that doesn't belong to you.
Copyright infringement is COPYING something that doesn't belong to you. Nothing is taken, because nothing is missing.
This is why it's a different crime and shouldn't be called "theft".
To
take does not require a physical movement of the item; I already posted this but since you seem to have missed it I'll post again:
Take:
Oxford Concise:
3. Accept or receive
4. Acquire or assume
New Oxford American Dictionary (OS X):
1. <further division --WC> Gain or acquire (possession or ownership of something)
American Heritage:
1. To get into one's possession by force, skill, or artifice
10. To accept and place under one's care or keeping
Merriam-Webster:
6: to transfer into one's own keeping
11 a: to obtain by deriving from a source
12: to receive or accept whether willingly or reluctantly
So, to use the AH, that gives us:
To get into one's possession by force, skill, or artifice (the property of another) without right or permission
That sentence is using definitions of both "take" (red) and "steal" (blue; with "take" replaced by its definition) When Bob pirates software, movies, music
et cetera he makes a copy of someone else's property. Since Bob is without right or permission to have said copy he has gotten that property into his possession through skill or artifice (and maybe force).
Your efforts to rationalize your, or other's, thievery are just thatrationalizations.