I would have to argue that the primary function of stealing, however, is not the removal of one thing from one person, but rather the acquisition of one thing by another person, and this seems to be supported by several of the definition entries in the OED that go back throughout its etymology. Many of them define the term based on the agent and not the victim, such as "To gain by secret or unobtrusive means" or "To derive obscurely and dishonourably" "To take dishonestly or secretly." Of course you can steal intangible objects. To use less controversial examples, when you use somebody else's invention idea, you're stealing. When you plagiarize another person's work, you're stealing. The problem is that your notion of stealing rests entirely on the victim and on a tangible, physical loss, and that does not cover sufficiently the entire set of objects 'things that can be stolen.' I suppose that we have reached a dead end if I can't convince you that downloading is stealing, so this will probably be my last post on the subject.