The way I think of it- If everybody in the world could make copies of physical stuff, like food and so forth, would we still be charged for it? Throw in expensive PC components into some machine, and pay for some raw material, and the machine clones the components perfectly.
(Raw material in this case I suppose being disk space). That IMO is the major difference between physical theft and digital theft- the only thing the original owner doesn't lose the item, since the "thief" simply cloned it.
I think it is the ease with which copies can be made and how that makes any law on theft that is applicable for physical objects somewhat redundant with digital files.
Poll