In your example, the grocery store will do inventory and discovery they are short 1 ice cream sandwich and 1 mountain dew.  They write the cost of those goods off as shrinkage&#x2F;stolen goods.<p>What exactly is warner bros missing at the end of the month when they do inventory?  What item comes up 1 short when they go to grab it, because 1 person downloaded a copy?  What do they write off on the balance sheet as shrinkage?<p>The answer is nothing, because copyright infringement is not theft.  They may have commonalities, but they are separate and distinct.  If they were the same there would be no legal definition for copyright infringement, because it would be already covered under existing theft laws.<p>I wish people would retire this ridiculous argument.  There are legitimate arguments to be made against piracy without having to misrepresent the issue.