Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you honestly don't know why I will explain it to you. It is because it is theft. If I were to steal some or all of your possessions and give it to the disadvantaged, then I suppose you shouldn't honestly get all that upset about it, but I doubt that would happen.
> In economic terms, intellectual property is non-rival, whereas tangible property is rival. As a result, the “piracy” of intellectual property is simply not the same sort of zero-sum game that car theft — or theft of any tangible property — is. And that means that when Hollywood or the U.S. government says that music or movie downloaders are “pirates” or “thieves,” they are indulging in a bit of loose rhetoric. Ther…
If I buy a candy bar at the store for $0.99 and then you steal it, now you have it and I don't. I'm out $0.99 of value and you stole $0.99 of value.
But what if you steal the candy bar directly from the store? You got $0.99 of value, but the store didn't pay $0.99 for that candy bar; they may have only paid $0.40. What you actually stole from them was two things: $0.40 of inventory and $0.59 of foregone revenue.
Even if you drop $0.40 on the counter as you walk out the door, it would still be considered a theft because the store gets to decide what their retail prices are, not you. You're still stealing $0.59 of foregone revenue.
IP products essentially have an "inventory" cost near zero. Yet, if you take a song or a trade secret without paying for it, you're still taking their foregone revenue. Just like dropping $0.40 on the counter for a $0.99 candy bar, you're dropping $0.00 on the counter for a $0.99 song or $1 million trade secret. Reimbursing someone's inventory cost (even if it's $0.00) does not mean there is no theft occurring.
While the IP itself is non-rival, the revenue from each sale is rival; that is, if you acquire my IP via a pirated copy then I still have my IP, but I don't have the revenue from selling you my IP.