Sigh, not this again. Imagine this: You go to someone's house, paint a room and then they refuse to pay you. Are they stealing? Doesn't really matter what you call it, it's wrong.
That analogy makes no sense. Allow me to use cars:
I go to the dealership and see a car a like. I whip out my Star Trek replicator and duplicate one of them. Then I drive it home. The dealership is exactly in the same position as if I had never even been there, which I wouldn't have been due to the high prices. (>$0)
The dealership lost no money, only a sale. It is not theft.
Allow me to use a reference illustration:
It IS, however, against the law. I don't have the right to make a copy of the program, just like how I don't have the right to drive home in a car that has an invalid VIN and/or not registration, etc.
The law that I am breaking by downloading pirate apps and music is NOT theft. If caught and prosecuted, I will NOT be charged with theft. Even though I pirated Adobe Creative Suite 3, which costs over $500, I will not be charged with grand theft. Only copyright infringement.
It is not a tough concept. You have something I want, I duplicate it, you still have it. You are unaffected. Why do you care? Because you could have made a sale? Well you didn't. You also could have made a sale to hundreds of other people who chose not to buy your software, so why not get angry at them too and call them thieves?
The only reason it irritates me is because people call me a thief. I am not a thief, I commit copyright infringement. It is a victimless crime. I would NEVER walk into Best Buy and steal something. That I consider morally wrong.
Then again, I also consider it morally wrong to go to church, and to sell 1's and 0's arranged creatively, and to believe in false idols like God and Jesus, but morals are a totally different topic. This is 100% law, and I am only breaking one: US copyright law.
kthxbai
You know, I've always wondered about that. How do these people update their apps? I know you can manually update free apps by downloading a new version, but doesn't iTunes know when you hit 'Check for Updates' you didn't pay for an app you're trying to update? Do you have to constantly steal the newest version of an app? Doesn't seem worth it.
Updates for pirated apps do not show up in the AppStore. You have to download the new *.ipa and sync in with your phone to get the updated version of the software.
I imagine in the pirated apps DID show up in the AppStore, downloading the updates would make you pay for them.