Infringement, Theft, Piracy

When, if ever, is copyright infringement "theft"? What are the rhetorical advantages of describing "copyright infringement" as "theft"? Patricia Loughlan ponders those questions in "You Wouldn't Steal a Car" Intellectual Property and the Language of Theft, a short, incisive paper which is available for download here.  Loughlan argues that infringement is, in most cases, not properly (i.e., as a legal matter) described as "theft", and that "the insulting and inflammatory language of theft, in short, reduces a difficult policy debate, with significant economic and cultural consequences, to a crude and simplistic moral drama". (ht: Media Law Prof Blog)