They really aren't. The labor that went into it is already paid in full, even if what the labor created earns for another 20 years, that labor won't see another dime for it. Can't steal what isn't there
It can happen in artistic fields like acting and game dev.
Fun fact: In game dev, at least, your initial payment to make a game is typically an advance on the share of the profits you'll get. So terms like "$100k to start and then 10%" function more like "10% to a minimum of $100k" in the long term.
The boss pays me for my time, I'm never getting that time back so I've sold it and they own it, in fact, they even get to keep the work I produced during that time to go with it.
Sure, a court would charge you with different crimes, but the concept is the concept and a forum post is not court.
I prayed shit all the time when I couldn't afford it. When I got money, I eventually rebuilt a lot of those games for convenience's sake. Comics, not so much, but I have thousands upon thousands of them.
I did it because I couldn't afford it. If you take something that is being sold, without paying for it, how is that concept not stealing?
I'm not exactly against piracy but I don't see it as morally good. If anything I see it in the same way Gabe Newell sees piracy. It's not a good or bad force but rather a sort of force of human nature that comes about when companies can't make a decent service. The only way to kill piracy is by making a user experience that is better than constantly searching for torrents. You need a decent platform that people are willing to pay for. Enshitification is basically a summoning circle for pirates. Sirusly covering your platform with scam ads is just gonna make demand for ad blockers. Not selling old games at all is just gonna make demand for emulators. Charging $50 dollars for a text book is just gonna make demand for a PDF scans. It's crap like that that makes me consider piracy good and a necessity today.
You want your generalized term (barking) to be the central point then narrow to your difference (different barks).
Yours set the broad precedent of heat/fire being hot (theft being wrong) but not all heat being fire. I understood your intent, but what you're literally saying here is that not all theft is piracy, which is true but irrelevant.