Its not being taken from anyone, so it is not theft. If I find 50 dollars on the ground and keep it, its isnt theft and this is in a situation where there is a discernable loss to someone. Much less is it theft when nothing has been taken from anyone, as per the definition

I have dvd most of those items and still don't pirate. I use them for their intended purposes.

I copy my child's dvd movies so they dont' ruin the originals.

I take my digital video from my Sony camera and digital pictures from my cell and camera and make videos/gifts/etc.

I use them to backup my HDD.

As I have said before, I would never copy a product just because I have the capability. Without consent it is illegal and theft as defined above.

Pirating has done nothing good for any market. Music industry can use MP3's because their product can be broken down into small inexpensive parts, games and movies cannot. As their content needs to be whole to be of any value.

Pirating only helps the thieves.

The iPod and other such devices, along with their online stores, made MP3 and similar formats huge, not pirates.

Finding money on the ground and purposefully making a copy of money are not the same thing. Furthermore, if you find money you should first try to find its owner.

Otherwise, its not much different from theft.

The person who copied the file committed infringment right?

Why am I a bad guy in this though? He is giving me permission to download his copy.

I am not stealing.

Actually if you find $50 dollars on the floor in the UK it is theft. Finders keepers losers weepers does not hold water in the eyes of the law. For you to pick up your 50 bucks and it not be theft you have to prove the item is abandoned. Somebody losing an item does not mean abandonment and does not mean they have lost ownership of the said item.

So sayeth yea.

Strangely enough the mp3 player boom happend right at the peak of pirating out of all people i know who possess or use to possess an Ipod or a mp3 player all of them had pirate song in them, before all the fuss about pirating I didn't even know sharing music was a crime and many people still don't know about it, you might not use those device illegaly but many people do and the companies creating those device make money from those illegal behavior

How are people getting pirated games?? Well, they usually download it from torrent web sites. ( some people actually PAY for pirated games in 3rd world countries, i guess that's not piracy?) Now, people who are PUTTING THOSE GAMES ON THOSE WEB SITES ARE THEFTS. the guy who downloading  them is not guilty for finding much better offer. The guy who is uploading those games on the torrent web sites is guilty.

to summarize:

The guy who is putting pirated games on torrent web sites or selling them: Theft

The guy who is downloading pirated games from torrent web sites: not guilty.

So if you find a 50$ bill in the street you must let it there or the popo could put you in jail?

Part of piracy is perception. Why is a car worth 20K or 40K? It's physical, it has people designing and engineering and building it and you want something that's reliable. When you look at a CD/DVD/Bluray disc, it's just a disc with bits of data. You cannot distinguish masterpiece movie from porn to infomercials but they are all lumped in the same group because externally looks the same. It's just ones and zeros and there's no perceived value because the disc itself in the raw form only cost at most a few bucks. So it must be what it's worth. Pirates don't care about the production or hard work it took to make the game or the movie or all that's involved. All that matters is that they get the enjoyment without paying for it. The bits and bytes just magically formed themselves without intervention from anyone.