In an economy where attention is the currency, someone takes your work and uses it to gather attention to themselves -- attention that would otherwise have been yours.
How is that not stealing?
How is that not stealing?
So the answer is easy - you can't talk about stealing "attention", when the "attention" you're talking about never existed in the first place.
If I go into your garage and take your snowblower, and rent it out while you're not using it, without asking you, or giving you any money, how is that stealing?
Perhaps a better analogy is when you rent/loan out your snowblower, are you stealing from the manufacturer who otherwise could have made additional sales to your rental customers? That would cover your demand component.
So to stretch this analogy: the snowblower is the Snow Master 1.0, your own unique design, the pinnacle of years of research. Someone else comes along, magically copies it without your permission, and, having no costs to recoup, undercuts you in the market.
I don't know if that's stealing, but I do know you'll think very hard before starting work on Snow Master 2.0.
So, erm, we don't live in that economy.
As a thought experiment, though, let's assume we have a magical attention-based currency. Attention is not quantifiable, it is not fungible, and it is not storable. So, erm, why the fuck would you use it as a currency?
We can call copying a DVD copyright infringement, after all a viewer would not necessarily have bought the DVD so calling it theft is incorrect.
However, cloning a Youtube video is closer to theft. Removing a viewer is directly decreasing the value of the video for Google.
It is also key to various legal actions that have happened recently against Google news: some Belgian Companies wanted a cut of Google revenue for showing part of their articles. As much as it hurt my feeling as a older gen internet user, they have a point in this new world where traffic is revenue.