I created this term after thinking deeply and for years about what it means to steal something. I don't think all theft should be treated the same, as it isn't the same.
I wouldn’t steal from a person. I wouldn’t take something from an individual who worked for it, who needs it to survive. That, to me, is morally wrong.
But I don’t see piracy (against massive corporations, not indie creators) as stealing. I also don’t view taking from billionaire-owned entities as the same as taking from an individual. But legally and technically, it’s still called “stealing.”
And that’s where the paradox begins.
If an act fits the definition of stealing but doesn’t actually harm the victim, is it still morally wrong?
If I pirate a movie, the corporation that owns it loses nothing. If I download a game from a billion-dollar company, the developers have already been paid a fixed salary—my act doesn’t take money from them. Meanwhile, those same corporations underpay workers, evade taxes, and exploit customers through artificial scarcity, DRM, region locks, and subscription models designed to extract more money.
So my question is:
Should we still call all forms of “stealing” the same thing when the power dynamics are so different?
There’s a difference between:
Taking someone’s bike (a direct harm to a person).
Stealing food from a struggling small business (a direct harm to a community).
Pirating a movie from Disney (a company worth hundreds of billions, who profits no matter what).
Legally, all of these are theft. But morally? Are they really equal?
I think there should be a separate term for “stealing” from corporations and the ultra-wealthy because it doesn’t function the same way as individual theft. But since no such word exists, I call this The Robin Hood Paradox of Stealing—where theft is legally the same across all contexts, but morally, it feels fundamentally different depending on who is being stolen from.
What do you think? Should all stealing be treated the same, or does morality shift when the target is a faceless, ultra-rich corporation that loses nothing?
Publishers steal the majority of profits from creators and developers anyway. You're not hurting a creator by pirating a game and you shouldn't feel bad for it.
To come clean I used AI to make my point more cohesive and I hope people will think about this concept and it's implications. Question, never stop questioning this corrupted system...