In some ways an act of copyright infringement is similar to an act of theft and in other ways it is different. The use of labels like "theft" and "stealing" for acts of copyright infringement is an attempt to capitalize on the connotations of and feelings regarding those crimes and apply them by default to a qualitatively different type of act without consideration or analysis of the fundamental differences. It's a form of circular reasoning which doesn't lead anywhere, thus the impasse in the discussion.
To consider the wrongness of copyright infringement we have to start at the beginning. I assert that the fundamental purpose to forming societies is to advance the common good through cooperation, division of labor (and thus specialization), and mutual respect. Society works by individual contributions to society earning a share of the benefits of society (ie. the contributions of others). But the purpose can break down when some individuals choose to take benefits without contribution (or through negative acts such as robbery, assault, and destruction of property). The taking of tangible goods (or the rivalrous place-holder, money) is a selfish act which works against the fundamental purpose of society; it's an attempt to benefit from the benefits of societal cooperation while choosing to instead follow jungle rules. And thus most societies forbid, guard against, and punish such acts.
That analysis is fairly obvious for tangible (or more generally "rivalrous"--thanks
darkmagicwillow) resources. But what if what one contributes is not tangible nor a finite service (such as hair-cutting/styling, which can only be performed in a finite capacity) but something less tangible such as scientific discovery, technological advancement, or the cultural contrubution of various artistic expressions? How do you measure the "contribution" to society of an artist, or writer, or performer as opposed to that of a farmer, herder, rancher, butcher, breadmaker, barber, hair-stylist, factory-worker, engineer, inventor, and so on. You can't (even some of the later ones in that list can't really be measured though the resulting benefits of their contributions can usually be pointed to), because the contribution is more nebulous; but it's still a contribution and important to the general advancement of society. It has to be considered on more qualitative grounds, so let's try that.
What is the contribution of an inventor? If an inventor has an idea but does not share it, it does not help society in any way. If the idea is shared but not useful, the contribution is slim to none. If the idea is useful but not used (because society wasn't ready for it?) again the contribution is fairly slim, though it might become useful at a later time and contribute greatly. If the idea is helpful in improving people's lives or in making people's efforts more efficient (producing more for society from fewer resources and/or less effort) then the benefit to society can be huge. Of course, if the inventor were rewarded with the actual increase provided by their invention it would negate the benefits to society (if the invention cut your production costs in half but you had to pay that same amount for the use of the invention nothing changes externally except the inventor gets rich on a benefit that wasn't delivered--and perhaps your previous suppliers suffer a loss, depending on how production costs were saved). Rewarding inventors becomes very tricky. Of course they must be recognized as having contributed to society, but the more society is charged the less it can actually benefit from the invention. Reward inventors too little and they can't afford to invent, wasting their potential and costing society the advancements it might bring, but reward them too much and only the inventor benefits. Obviously a middle ground is ideal.
Quote:
From the US Constitution
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
This is an attempt to balance the benefits to society against the needs of the individuals who create those benefits (eg. inventors) by creating a system where they can profit for a reasonable period of time after which their exclusive claim expires and the contribution falls fully into the public domain (thus the greatest contribution, though delayed). "For limited times" is a key part of this balance.
So having considered inventions from a high level, what about artistic creations? The benefits of artistic expressions are much harder to quantify (probably impossible) but in a qualitative sense--as with inventions--the contribution to society is greater the more the work is shared and enjoyed and lesser the more the work is restricted or ignored. Thus things seem more "right" the more a work can be shared an enjoyed while rewarding the artist (eg. writer) who created it. Without recognition and reward for the artist/writer they would not be able to afford to devote their energies to artistic creation and society would be deprived of their works. But without dissemination of the works and easy and affordable access, society is largely deprived of the works as well. To try to create a workable system (for written works) copyright law forbids copying without the permission of the copyright holder (ie. paying them) but allows such authorized copies to be shared such as loaning a book to a friend or making the book available to the public in a library. Restricting the publishing of a book to a contract with the author ensures that the books can be sold for more than the cost of printing them and thus can pay the author; if any printing company could print copies of the latest popular book, they could undercut the prices until the publisher buying the work from the author could not afford to pay for it (or pay very little) since competitors would not have to pay more than the price of one book (and production similar to printing from a manuscript). It seems likely the author and the first publisher could make very little profit from the enterprise, and the author probably couldn't make a living at it; thus, the copyright laws.
Unfortunately technology has evolved to a point which makes the traditional copyright model unstable. In electronic and especially digital form copying is so easy it requires essentially no resources to make and very little to transfer or distribute. Thus Napster is born. But unlike sharing a physical copy of a book or CD with a friend (perfectly legal), Napster "shared" by creating copies without any reason to deprive the "donor" of their copy, and without any system by which artists could be rewarded for their contribution. One person buys a CD and makes it available for electronic copying by everyone else on the Internet. The next CD someone else buys and makes available, so the cost to the individual in this cooperative network is very little while they all benefit with a great abundance of music to enjoy. Sometimes enjoying the music of an artist would encourage a person to buy their CD, perhaps one they would not have known about or considered had they not been introduced to it by the free sharing. Sometimes someone who wants the music on a CD instead downloads it for free and never buys the CD. The music industry likes to pretend the former doesn't happen and that the latter costs them money and that the responsibility for that loss is entirely on Napster (or systems that replaced it). But really they share in the responsibility as well.
CDs are priced about as high today as they were when they were just indroduced (adjusted for inflation, I believe). The increase in volume should have reduced production overhead, and yet the prices never came down. This is probably because the economics of supply and demand push it the other way when the supply has a monopoly on the product; the demand increased but there is no competition in the supply (only one publisher can provide that specific music because of exclusive contracts with the artist), so there was no reason for them to lower prices when they could instead just reap greater profit margins. Except eventually a lot of people got fed up with the absurdity of middle-men sucking up the majority of the profits by performing a function that technology makes increasingly unnecessary. So they countered with the other extreme, which ultimately doesn't work either. Currently a paid-subscription music-download service (which can pay fees to the copyright holders while still being cheap and efficient for users) seems to be getting established as a compromise.
Meanwhile, extending the term of copyright is an attempt to suck even more profits out of past works while the contribution of those works to society is lessened. The retroactive extension is particularly absurd since the creation of works decades ago can't possibly be promoted by the copyright term being extended beyond what it was at the time. The term was shorter and yet works were still created. The term could probably be a short as 10 years and works would still be created, though frankly that might be a bit short. The problem is, the whole approach to copyright is based on an obsolete technological landscape. The industry of course wants to extend their advantages under that model into the new realm, while blocking the advantages the technology should afford to users; but that is an attempt to extort greater reward for lessening contribution to society. Many users of course want to use the advantages of techology to get around the unfair behavior of certain monopolies but in doing so they disregard the purpose of rewarding creation to promote it in the first place. Neither extreme is tenable, and copyright really needs to be completely rethought given technological realities and its original social purpose.
When it comes to companies I dislike Disney are right up there with Microsoft.
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), but, like GG, I can definitely sympathize with feeling ashamed of the words or actions of your nation's leader(s). No doubt about that. I want 
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