Just because there’s a technical workaround doesn’t make it not stealing. If I neglect to lock my car and my stuff gets stolen, it’s still stealing. I might have been able to prevent it had I locked the car, but it’s still stealing.
Stealing does not apply to digital goods. You cannot deprive anyone of something infinitely replicable. You can only prevent those that you do not deem worthy to access it. and that attitude makes a person a bad person.
People lose their jobs because they are digital content creators and the attitude is that paying for intellectual property is uncool.
If there is another term you'd like to use for "looks like theft, but the original owner loses nothing" then feel free. But it is not theft or stealing, those require also depriving the rightful owner of the stolen property.
If I could duplicate the exact contents of your car, would it still be "stealing" if I did so? Reminder that you would continue to be in possession of 100% of the contents of your car. Maybe with regards to any digital data on any duplicated devices, I could see a bit of the "stealing" logic, then again nothing was actually "stolen" from you if you still have 100% of your original property, but I now also have duplicates of that property.
With a digital goods, we can eliminate the paper and plastic. It's a great thing! But for some reason, we've also decided to write the artist out of the equation too. At least if you're a pirate.
If you're a software engineer, you're being paid not to manufacture hard goods but to create something of intellectual value that could be technically be duplicated forever. What's the difference between pirating music and stealing code that is under a software license?
If by "stealing code" you mean creating and distributing (probably selling) software derived from it that violates the license, it is quite different.
If what you mean is simply downloading warez for your own use, it is more or less the same.
Stealing for personal use may be a more minor thing, but it still boggles me that people want to consume the fruits of others' labor without compensating them in anyway, as if creators are slaves who exist only to please.
But I will note that you are (by using the framing of "stealing") implying that piracy results in lost sales, which is largely not the case, except possibly for the most popular works. See "Piracy is Progressive Taxation":
https://www.oreilly.com/content/piracy-is-progressive-taxati...
In all cases, the price paid by the user is split in proportion which clearly shows that saying that "pirating" means stealing money from authors is utterly false. I have nothing against paying for books the amount really passed to authors plus some additional fair amount based on the true cost of distribution (eg. printing and transport or electronic storing and transfer) plus a modest profit. However, it is not the case nowadays.
Similarly, I would accept payments for articles in a model where the price for a good article wouldn't cover the costs of many worthless ones. The current model - subscription - is attempting to hide real costs of production of articles of very different value under average price forcing readers to purchase wholesale products. Why should one pay for "fillers" the same money as for good content?
For better or for worse, subscriptions are king in 2022, and I don’t see a meta-subscription for news being a good thing for journalism itself. Personally, I prefer something closer to the iTunes model, but that’s dead. I’m growing entirely sick of singular platforms that hold all the cards of entirely industries (and they don’t pay any better than the publishers do).
Your car example is not a good analogy. Once you notice people stealing, you would make sure the door is locked. Just like these websites can restrict the content server-side.
At the end of the day you are stealing and looting not just from the company, but the everyday people who work for that company, who are just trying to make a living for themselves and their families, and no rationalization will change that.
And to the car analogy: Let's say I was stolen from, but I'm so lazy I still can't be bothered to lock my car. Or I leave it open for some other reason. This has zero effect on the morality of the thief stealing from my car. It just means I'm an easy target for stealing. Two completely separate things.