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Copy right infrigement is not theft.
Whenever the subject of theft or stealing comes up, people are often tempted to talk about money and monetary value. What people forget, is that theft and stealing has nothing to do with money or percieved monetary value. Theft is the deprevation of property. For instance, if I was in posession of a worthless bucket of slop, and somebody came over and took it from me, that would be theft, even though the bucket of slop is worthless. (wether or not that person would be prosecuted is a different argument)
Theft has to do with physical property. Copy right infringement, is not theft. When I make a copy of something, I do not deprive you of your copy of the work. Thus, copy right infringement is not theft. I may lower the value of your copy of the work, but that does not equal theft. I could similarly create a more popular song/book/movie, thus lowering the value of your work, but that doesn't equal theft either. Theft has nothing to do with value.
Now, a little something about the constitution

The constitution effectly has created a right, called a copyright, by curtailing the people's natural freedom to copy. Read that again. It is natural to be able to copy other's works. It is unatural to restrict our ablility to copy. The Constitution has created a "copyright". In other words, this right is "given" by the Constitution. All of our other rights are "protected" by the Constitution.
Why does the Constitution do this? It's very simple, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". It's the carrot and the stick philosophy. Encourage creators with money, prod them with time-limited copyrights. Are there any other reasons for a short copyright term? Yes, plenty. For more information, read the works of a man named Thomas Jefferson. He wrote very succintly why copyright is a necessary evil, and why copyright should be limited.

Problems with copyright today:
1) People keep calling it theft.
Why do they do this? Because corporations and creators want to make you feel bad about infringement. They want money, and most don't give a shit about contribution to culture and society. So they think that if they call it "stealing" it will make people feel bad and congress will pass laws severly punishing people who do it. But lets face it people. Copyright infringement is distinctly different from a moral perspective than other crimes such as real theft and manslaughter. Why is that? Well, copyrights are not natural rights. However, property rights and the right to life are natural rights. I would argue that infringing on someone's natural rights are more morally perverse than infringing on unatural rights.

2) Copy rights are no longer time-limited. Several years ago, congress passed another copyright extension. This act extended copyright terms to author's lifetime plus seventy years. Furthermore, the extension was applied retroactively. Several consumer advocacy groups filed suit, claiming that this effectively created unlimited copyrights, and was thus unconstitutional. While the Judge found that the act was constitutional, he felt that it was still monumentally stupid.

Does this mean that we should do whatever we want? Download whatever we want? Well, I wouldn't go that far. I feel that people should actively correct others when copyright infringement is refered to as "theft" or "stealing". Its not. I feel that people should actively correct others when copyright infringement is equated on a moral level to "theft" or "stealing". Its not. I feel that people should take a good hard look at the numbers when others say that downloading movies and songs hurts the music and movie industries. It doesn't. There is no evidence whatsoever that in the US, copyright infringement (in the form of downloading songs and movies) hurst the music and movie industries. In fact, profit in these two areas have actually increased these past years.