MPAA Being Sued For Allegedly Hacking Torrentspy 448
goldaryn writes "Valence Media, the parent company of Torrentspy.com, one of the web's largest torrent search engines, has filed a lawsuit against the MPAA for allegedly hiring a hacker to steal e-mail correspondence and trade secrets. From the suit: 'The Motion Picture Association of America willfully and intentionally obtained without authority, conspired to obtain without authority, purchased, procured, used and disclosed private information that it knew was unlawfully obtained through unauthorized access to Plaintiffs' computer servers and private email accounts, in violation of United States and California privacy and computer security laws.'"
celebrity jailtime (Score:5, Insightful)
What did Gandhi say about an eye for an eye? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here we see an eye-for-an-eye. Gandhi said if we followed that rule the whole world would be blind. I think it's appropriate here as in the long run, it isn't consumers who will "win" if this case continues, it is the lawyers and the law itself that wins. As cases are won and lost and precedents are set, we don't see the market of sellers and buyers made easier, instead we see more laws and legal precedents that put more power in the hands of those who can afford the legal costs.
So what happens if the MPAA loses? Can you or I use the same case tactics to defend our own information? What happens if the MPAA wins? They only get more powerful. In the end, someone else is enhancing their power (through the State), rather than a market that really doesn't need any more powerful players in the game.
I'd rather see someone sue the LAWS that are bad rather than take advantage of other bad laws to try to fix the system in their favor.
Isn't this legal yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
--jeffk++
Two wrongs don't make a right (Score:4, Insightful)
"These claims (by Torrentspy) are false," Kori Bernards, the MPAA's vice president of corporate communications, said in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "Torrentspy is trying to obscure the facts to hide the fact that they are facilitating thievery. We are confident that our lawsuit against them will be successful because the law is on our side."
Conceivably both lawsuits will succeed, both parties allege (different) illegal activities. The question is, whose suit will attract the most damages - one stolen spreadsheet or a few million stolen movies?
Re:What did Gandhi say about an eye for an eye? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't sue laws. Even if you could, they have no money to pay damages. You need to VOTE to change laws.
This is a tough one for me. As an anarcho-capitalist, I believe...
Ah well, that explains it.
Corporate Vigilante (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when a corporate consortium declares itself a vigilante in the fight against pirrracy. What makes it worse is there own twisted view of what is morally right and what isn't (suing students into bankruptcy and hacking into people's computers to justify there ends most certainly isn't).
Doubtful (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless the hacker has more direct contacts than one or two people inside the MPAA, I'd expect this to be swept under the carpet fairly quickly. I really hope the MPAA gets some bad press because of it, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Re:Two wrongs don't make a right (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm confused. I thought the law was supposed to be on the side of the public?
Oh well, I suppose when you pay for a law, you should expect it to be on your side.
this is funny. (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, there is still the old idea that you can't call downloading "theft" because there really is no proven loser. We should all of us contact a lawyer and have legal documents drawn up, and notorized that say something like "In the event that any digitally copyrighted material is found on this hard drive, let this document serve as a legally binding guarantee that said materials would never have been purchased otherwise and therefore no loss of revenue can possibly be proven solely based on the posession and or existance of these materials."
See, the problem is they have managed to convince too many judges that ALL of the material you or I may have on a hard drive would have absolutely been purchased had we not had the opportunity to download it.
I call bullshit. Who's with me?
Re:But who cares about a pirate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
Why scoff? Not to justify the existance of the MPAA but if people think this stuff is crap why are people being caught downloading it?
While the MPAA should be facing more serious legal action than a simple lawsuit the cries of "artists who are protected/represented by the **AA are just crap and their product is crap" are laughable when you consider that the **AA wouldn't have a leg to stand on if people actually felt this way. If people are serious about a boycott they need to go full tilt, if they turn to piracy the **AA is going to get paid either way.
I agree that these movies, for the most part, are crap. But they're crap at any price, you won't be finding this trash on my HD or in my home media collection. I simply have no interest. Pirating only reinforces the concept that stuff like "Gigli" has a viable market that is being robbed by P2P and BT services.
Sued ... why no FBI raid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why isn't this a criminal investigation? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm confused as to why this is a lawsuit brought by a private company and not a criminal investigation conducted by the FBI. IANAL, but I would have assumed that breaking into a company's computer systems to retrieve this information would violate criminal law, and I would have assumed that paying someone to do this would also violate criminal law. What's going on here?
Is paying someone to break into a computer system not a criminal act? Are the FBI knowingly ignoring a criminal act (perhaps because the MPAA is rich and politically powerfull)? Is Torrentspy just misrepresenting the situation to make it sound worse than it actually is (and, therefore, sound criminal)?
My issue with this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Can someone tell me why this is a matter of sueing the MPAA? I would think that if there was solid evidence of the MPAA being caught up in this activity that the cuffs would come out and some suits would be hauled off to the klink.
That, in and of itself, makes this seem like something that may be hard to attack in a court of law. If you have a legal conviction it would make the civil suit seem solid. A civil suit on it's own seems weak.
It's sad really (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:1, Insightful)
Because some movies aren't crap at any price. Let's see, I can do three clicks, leave my PC on overnight, and browse through a movie I wouldn't have paid 5 cents for, or I can not do it. It's just too damned easy to obtain a movie, so even people with the smallest of passing interests in it might still download it. Heck, it's so easy I'd download an entire movie I didn't care at all to see just for a single frame of a naked celebrity I've been curious about, but that's just me.
Re:this is funny. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you take the rootbeer, you've deprived the store-owner of his property, . If you copy a file, the owner still has the original.
tha analogy would be a better one if you took a photo of his rootbeer.
Re:this is funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
Torrent sites track torrents and provide a means of exchanging copyrighted materials. It's pretty cut and dry.
Besides, there is still the old idea that you can't call downloading "theft" because there really is no proven loser.
Then you can't call GPL violations "theft," but Slashdot does all the time. The loser is the person who owns the material who would normally have been compensated, but will not be because you downloaded without paying. Your downloaded files will be uploaded to other individuals who will also not pay. It's facilitation of copyright violation and withholding of revenues owed.
We should all of us contact a lawyer and have legal documents drawn up, and notorized that say something like "In the event that any digitally copyrighted material is found on this hard drive, let this document serve as a legally binding guarantee that said materials would never have been purchased otherwise and therefore no loss of revenue can possibly be proven solely based on the posession and or existance of these materials."
*rolls eyes* Yeah, that'll work.
It doesn't matter if you wouldn't have purchased something. How does that magically give you the legal right to have it? Do you understand capitalism and economies at all, or are you another dorm room kid with head-in-the-cloud ideals about how the real world works?
See, the problem is they have managed to convince too many judges that ALL of the material you or I may have on a hard drive would have absolutely been purchased had we not had the opportunity to download it.
It doesn't matter if you would or wouldn't have purchased the material. You ended up getting the material without paying for it when you had no right to, legally and ethically. You're essentially saying in that statement that you have a ton of stuff you would have never purchased, but you downloaded it anyway, which just bolster's the MPAA's position that the sites you got the material from should be shut down, so that the MPAA members' rights aren't being violated. The judges have to agree, because it's against the law to violate creators' rights and steal their stuff so you don't have to pay them for it. What gives you the right to do that?
I call bullshit. Who's with me?
Probably every other freeloader who has created an entire fictional belief system that scapegoats copyright holders so they don't feel guilty for pirating the fuck out of everything. "The MPAA made me do it! The RIAA made me do it!"
Why don't you ask John Carmack sometime if it's okay that people download Doom 3 without paying him for the years of work he put into it? Carmack's a Slashdot hero around here...would be interesting to see people's reactions to his response.
Re:But (Score:3, Insightful)
MPAA: What? you want to send us to jail? *Pulls out checkbook* Here's $30 mill.
JD: Oh wait, YOU didn't do the hacking, that guy you hired did, we should be going after him. Sorry for wasting your time.
That's how they won't go to jail.
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds very noble, but it is entirely unconvincing.
If Overly Critical Guy would give at least one example of a single person that stated both views he would be more credible.
As it is, it sounds like Overly Critical Guy can't believe that the contradictory sentiments may actually be held by non-intersecting subsets of posters.
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't bought a CD in years
A large part of being a part of the market for music CDs is being in the *habit* of listening to new ones. If you lose the habit, you stop wanting new CDs. So the RIAA is in a really tough position. If they implement effective controls on copying, they cut their audience, and if they don't their audience cuts them out.
The MPAA is a slightly different animal, but not much. I no longer go to see movies, and I don't miss them. My wife subscribes to NetFlix, and I don't even bother to watch them. Even though they're already paid for. It's not time pressure, either. I just lost the habit. I used to watch lots of TV, and now I don't.
Is it because they are purveying crap? Possibly. But they always were, you know. If I look at the old movies I liked, or listen to the old music, well, Sturgeon's law...only squared. There is actually some good stuff there, but slightly less than 1%. If you want "very good" it becomes much less than 1%. It's mostly a matter of habit.
Perhaps the original StarWars was as good as I remember. The second time I saw it, it still seemed pretty good, even though it was years later, the screen was an ordinary screen, and the print was pretty scratchy. The sequels? I saw the first one. It was ok, but nothing special. I've heard about several of the others...apparently there are several unexpected plot twists. It takes more than plot twists to make a movie worth seeing. In fact, plot twists aren't even necessary. The basic plot can be totally predictable and the movie can still be great (think "West Side Story" or "Camelot").
The thing is, you can set out to make a great movie, but you can't reliably get there. You can set out to make a splashy special effects movie, and you can reliably achieve it. You've got to be willing to make a bunch of schlock to make an occasional masterpiece. Some Directors are. Occasionally a producer is. A business office is never willing to do that.
If the MPAA rules, there will never be any more great movies. Don't criticize them because they produce crap, criticize them for fouling the well.
That said, lots of people like schlock. It can be watched mindlessly and without significant emotional involvement. "I Love Lucy" was one of the most successful radio shows ever produced, and almost all of it is schlock. There were occasional gems, but mainly it was schlock.
It would be nice if this suit were to bankrupt the MPAA. I don't expect it. But if every participant in both the MPAA and the RIAA caught a disgusting disease and dies slowly of the period of three years...I wouldn't weep one tear. Though I would feel a bit sorry for the janitors.
To me, the crucial thing is (Score:2, Insightful)
In a less cartelized world, bittorrent would be seen for what it is: an alternate means of distribution that is enormously powerful, and incredibly cheap for the distributor, since they wouldn't have to invest in much storage or bandwidth. SOMEBODY would be offering their product for download at a reasonable price. Say $5.00 for a full DVD9 movie that you'd have to burn yourself. A couple more bucks, and they remove the copy protection. Piracy, which is inevitable, would be seen as wastage and free publicity for the studio, the director, the actors and so on. It would be prosecuted only when done for resale.
But since there are only a few studios, they band together in the RIAA and MPAA, and no real competition is required.
If Torrent Spy wins the lawsuit (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:4, Insightful)
With theft, you lose your Audi or Walmart physically loses the stuff off the shelf. With copyright infringement, the MPAA is not physically deprived of their property. Their is potential loss of profit because the demand for their product goes down, but the same could be said if people had the ability to make their own car and thus make purchasing your Audi less attractive.
Re:Two wrongs don't make a right (Score:1, Insightful)
Its not about which copyrighted material is worth more!!! Thats not whats important in this case. Think about it.
The MPAA is alleging that torrentspy makes copyright infringment easier. NOT that they actually commit copyright infringment. Torrentspy is not actaully breaking ANY laws or copyrights themselves by just cataloging people who do have it avaliable.
THe MPAA on the other hand, is accusaed of paying someone to steal confidential information from torrentspy.
Re:What did Gandhi say about an eye for an eye? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:this is funny. (Score:1, Insightful)
Nothing yet, that's what needs to change. The internet is here to stay, and so is downloading. The solution has nothing to do with complicated DRM laws or forced compliance from the entire population.
You want people to buy music? Then take advantage of the internet, cut out retail and advertisement costs and charge 30 cents for a song that will play anywhere a normal mp3 would.
You want people to pay you for producing movies? Then keep the theater interesting, give them formats or experiences you can't find sitting in front of a monitor at home. Charge $3 for a DVD, that's impulse shoppice price people will be picking them up like candy. Who wants to wait hours downloading and burning a DVD when they can get a perfectly good copy for less than the price of a cheeseburger?
The RIAA and MPAA have got it in their heads that their way of business is an absolute, that our entire culture needs to revolve its copyright laws around their vision of artists rights. They're unable to face becoming obselete but too entrenched in their own propaganda to revive their industry with something out of the box. The rest of the world adapts to changing technology, maybe it's time for them to do the same.
Lastly, your 'this is the way the world works' attitude is driving our civilization into the ground. People need to stop living in the past and realize the present, what worked 40 years ago will not necessarily work today.
Or would you rather we sacrifice our culture to the slow march of facism to safeguard our all-important entertainment industry?
Re:Anarcho-capitalist? (off topic) (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. When gold is money (as it has been for almost 8000 years until 1913), people use it as a store of wealth and a unique article of barter. When paper was redeemable for gold, we had a VERY strong and stable currency (the dollar of 1790 was only devalued about 5% by 1912). From 1913 to 2006 the paper unbacked dollar has devalued almost 96%.
In fact, the US experienced this in its earlier days of currency. The gov't decided to allow banks to print their own currency, and it was a complete mess. The US gov't finally had to step in and take over all minting itself.
Again, I disagree. Check out Rothbard's What Has Government Done To Our Money [mises.com], a free e-book. Rothbard explains what happened with banks -- they were nationalized after Lincoln tried a central bank (it failed). Nationalized banks fell under a national charter that let them loan out more money than they had reserves for -- causing the historic runs. This was NOT free market banking. In fact, Lincoln (and Greenspan and now Bernanke) all believe in the monetary policy that is generally called the "real bills doctrine" which repeatedly has been found to be false.
Lastly, without some kind of backing of the currency, its worth remains very low. US currency is backed by the economic and military power of the US gov't. I would argue that any sufficiently valuable and stable currency, in the absence of government, would make whatever group produces that currency into the gov't, ipso facto.
Untrue. Government backing of the dollar through faith has caused the dollar to fall 96% in less than 100 years. Before this time, currency backed by gold has held value for thousands of years. The only time gold faltered was during gold rushes which was quickly corrected by increased buying power in one market that shipped gold elsewhere to equalize. Before that, gold standards fell apart usually when _government_ debased gold with cheaper metals.
You can't (easily) counterfeit gold, and you can use gold in an economy much larger than the one we have today. It might instill a small soft and beneficial deflation, but this would be good for every economy as it encourages savings and smart investing.
Everything we see negative in society today can be attributed to fiat currency -- wars, socialism, powermongering and wage destruction. Housing bubbles, tech bubbles and even the Great Depression occured due to fiat currency. Faith comes from a hard money standard (gold), not from war and power which require more money devaluation to occur.
Re:Why isn't this a criminal investigation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:if the MPAA is sued and loses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a little more complicated than that. I, as one person, may not need one particular MP3 to survive. However, in aggregate music, art, science and philosophy form culture, and we, as a society, need culture to survive as an advanced civilization. We need those things to inspire us with dreams and aspirations, to make us see past our own insignificant lives, to leave a legacy for future generations.
Some forms of art are expensive, like making movies, but other forms like music and creative writing are very inexpensive. A motivated hobbyist can do a pretty decent job at music or writing. What the studios have done is positioned themselves as the gatekeepers and the toll booths of culture. Sure, they do provide a service of filtering out crappy content (crappy in the sense of unpolished and poorly produced), but the value of that service is all out of proportion to their tax on culture.
Re:But (Score:2, Insightful)
What your personal dislike of movies and cd's has to do with whether any good movies or music is made any more, and further, what the MPAA and RIAA have to do with any of that...crazy talk man, pure crazy talk.
If you like to be spoon fed crap, then yes, maybe all that exists for you is the MPAA and RIAA. If you actually enjoy good movies or music, then you obviously know that there is a heck of a lot more out there. Don't cry 'no choice so chose nothing', that's a cop out and you're lying to yourself and us.
Re:good point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, your analogy hasn't broken yet, so let's see if we can stretch it a little more. Suppose Xerox made a copier that could copy cars. And suppose you made a copy of your Audi and sold it to someone for whatever price you two were able to agree upon. You might have to do a few things like filing off the VIN numbers (or report it to the Department of Redundancy Department) because Audi wouldn't want to provide warranty service for a car they didn't make. But other than that, should Audi be able to have the gendarmes throw you into gaol? Or suppose it was that medicine that prevented death due to dehydration in third-world countries?
-Loyal
Re:But (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
There is absolutely no inconsistency in a position that only one of these is wrong. The issue Torrentspy is raising has nothing to do with the ethics of duplicating information, it's about privacy.
Re:But (Score:3, Insightful)
From the American Heritage Dictionary (Score:5, Insightful)
Definition of theft:
1. The act or an instance of stealing; larceny.
or from the Thompson & Gale Legal Encyclopedia:
A criminal act in which property belonging to another is taken without that person's consent.
Definition of steal:
1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
Definition of take:
To get into one's possession by force, skill, or artifice, especially:
1. To capture physically; seize: take an enemy fortress.
2. To seize with authority; confiscate.
So...
"for instance if I plug something into an outlet at your house, you are not deprived of anything yet I have stolen, have I not."
My electic bill would be greater because of you. As a direct result of your action, I have to pay more money. You have taken something of value that wasn't yours.
"How about unused bandwidth on an open wifi spot. (open by stupididy, not on purpose). Again you are not 'deprived' of anything yet it is still 'stealing'"
I can see people mistakenly calling it 'stealing'. But as long as it's an unmetered connection (in other words, not charged per kilobyte or whatever), the owner is not suffering any loss. Of course there may be laws against unauthorized access, but those are generally for security reasons. I have an open wifi connection, and don't see why I should get angry if people use it. If people abuse it, I'll secure it.
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA/MPAA material being copied on p2p networks however was (intended for being) published, no (virtual) breaking into mpaa/riaa computers is taking place etc.
In other words, the 2 situations are so different that compating them as you do and claiming they are in fact the same thing is imho extremely silly.
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
It is valid and consistent position to hold that violating copyright is moral, while violating copyleft is amoral.
The two are not identical in intention. Copyleft is in fact designed to thwart copyright.
(the names rather implies as much)
Re:But (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you believe that they do not have a right to do this?]
Not quite right. They sell (distribute) it to the public for the private viewing of the public. In other words, although they distribute it to the public, they don't want the public turning around and giving public performances. (Like showing the copy at your place of business for instance as a guess.)
They may indeed have every right to do this, and making and distributing these copies may indeed be illegal, but this is indeed material which they produced for distribution to the public.
Seems like that to me at least.
all the best,
drew
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2, Insightful)
But as far as I know, people who torrent movies don't attack the RIAA website to get said movie.
The issue wasn't "stealing", it was unauthorized access of a computer system. Or at least that's what it sounds like to me.
Re:Anarcho-capitalist? (off topic) (Score:1, Insightful)
Argument and critical thought are not one in the same. Politicians and pundits spend most of their time arguing for or against things, but few of them are capable of critical thought. Thinking critically entails not just making some argument for your point but asking yourself, "Is this actually true?" and then seeking the best counter-arguments you can come up with. Then you can make your claim with confidence it's actually true. You have offered some arguments for your assertion, but you have not yet demonstrated much critical thought.
But now I should admit that what you said was simply, "Everything we see negative in society today can be attributed to fiat currency..." That is manifestly true. One can attribute everything in society to fiat currency, just as religious people might attribute all ills of society to lack of (correct?) religious belief, or socialists might attribute them all to the class struggle and capitalism. You have ably demonstrated that given any ill of society one can some up with some (possibly quite circuitious) argument of how it might be related to fiat currency.
How I interpreted your statement was, "Everything we see negative in society today can be correctly attributed to fiat currency..." Now this statement would be difficult in the extreme to justify. You'd first have to actually enumerate every "negative" in society, show some sort of relation to fiat currency, and then actually rule out every other conceivable influence. Because, of course, fiat currency may have actually had a negligable effect compared to other factors, or it may have had the opposite effect of the one you expect, because society can be complicated. All these considerations are of course, only a concern if you want to think critically. If you just want to make an argument, they're no problem at all.
Case in point: Racism. It has existed in many places and times where there was no fiat currency, even in places where there was not a token economy at all. Therefore, to claim it can be attributed to fait currency (as a sole or significant cause) is dubious at best. You make an argument that inflation may inhibit social mobility, but offer no evidence to show that this is actually true in the real world. And, of course, there are myriad other factors that limit social mobility, so it's by no means clear that inflation (even if it is a factor) is significant when compared to other factors. Furthermore, Racism has existed against minority groups that are largely middle-to-upper class, e.g. jews in europe, which suggests that social mobility may not even be that important a factor. Also note that socialists make very similar arguments (that presumably you do not accept) that attribute racism to social stratification caused because workers do not own the means of production.
As I said, if all you want to do is make an argument, it's not hard, but thinking critically requires a lot of work. Making an attribution is not hard. Just look how easily the anarcho-capitalist and the socialist can both make different attributions on on the same issue. Making a correct attribution, on the other hand, is very tricky.
Re:But (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:1, Insightful)
TorrentSpy facilitates unlawful copying as much as any home improvement store facilitates the breaking of windows by selling bricks. It's a tool. It's neither inherently good nor evil. It can, however, be used for either purpose (good or evil).
Now, contrast that to what the MPAA did: the MPAA hired someone to unlawfully access a network.
No one is arguing that unlawful copying should be made legal. What we are arguing is that you cannot sue the brickmaker for making bricks that someone else used to break a window. The MPAA did a bad thing (tm) and they got caught. Don't try to make this look like two black hats dueling in the street at high noon. There's only one black hat here and that's the MPAA
Re:Anarcho-capitalist? (off topic) (Score:1, Insightful)
When gold is used as an abstract form of trade as well as treated itself as a valuable commodity, like with consumables like salt, you have a problem of the manipulation of the supply in circulation by individuals. Lots of economic problems and exploitation result from this. Without a fiat currency people would just game the gold (or any other commodity) market in cycles because the supply of gold cannot be regulated. That's exactly what happened and why fiat currency was invented. You could replace gold with any element you see fit and it would be not more suitable. A helium standard is no more or less useful than a gold standard. Both are relatively scarce on Earth.
Re:this is funny. (Score:3, Insightful)
If enough good people prefer sharing there would really be no reason to pay for anything, I mean, its not like money is really based on anything anymore. And a lot of products are valuable because of their intellectual property, whatever that is..
Hrmm, I believe in The Abolition of Work [deoxy.org].
This [youtube.com] is also interesting..
Re:But (Score:3, Insightful)
If you throw a rock and break my window, I can not have you arrested for murder. What you did does not meet the definition of the charge.
If I leave my front door unlocked and you come into my home unwanted and uninvited, I can not charge you with rape, as what you did does not meet the definition of the charge.
If you infringe on my right to limit the copying of a work (under copyright) I can not charge you with theft, AS WHAT YOU DID DOES NOT MEET THE DEFINITION OF THE CHARGE.
If you created (say) a piece of software that you could sell for $100,000 a pop and I just copied it and used it, surely you would not be happy and you would expect to be able to sue me?
Of course, if I had a copyright on the software and you infringed that copyright, then I could sue you and expect to recoup the lost income. I just could not charge you with theft, as what you did does not meet the definition of the charge.
It wouldn't make much difference whether it was called theft or software piracy or copyright infringement, I'd still have done you out of $100,000.
If you broke into my home and took $100,000 in cash then I would be out the money and you would be guilty of theft. You would NOT, however, be guilty of software piracy or copyright infringement.
If you broke into my home and took a CD with software worth $100,000 then I would be out the CD, and out the use of the software, and you would be guilty of theft, but not of software piracy or copyright infringement.
If I were selling the software for $100,000 and you broke into my shop and took a CD with the software on it, then you would be guilty of theft but not guilty of software piracy or copyright infringement.
If you COPIED that software and distributed it without a license from me (as the copyright holder), THEN you are guilty of copyright infringement - but unless you actually took a physical item from me you ARE NOT guilty of theft. You have not taken anything of value from me, you have only usurped my POTENTIAL PROFIT MAKING ability, a monopoly granted under copyright.
You have infringed on my legal rights, and I can sue you under CIVIL law for redress, but you have not violated CRIMINAL LAW relating to theft.
Same point, in a slightly different wording: If I LEGALLY obtain a copyrighted work under a license that restricts copying of that work then there have been no laws broken or infringed. If I then MAKE A COPY (or copies) without proper licensure, THEN I HAVE NOW BROKEN A LAW OR INFRINGED ON A LEGAL RIGHT. Based on the situation as given in this paragraph, I have not committed assult, libel, slander, carjacking, theft, barratry, loitering, littering, manslaughter, or any number of other actions that are illegal. Therefore, talking about what I did and calling it assult, libel, slander, carjacking, theft, barratry, loitering, littering, manslaughter, or any of the number of other actions that are illegal is wrong. I didn't do any of those things.