copyright infringement is not theft, it is also not piracy.

Piracy is a real crime, I am tempted to describe it as theft of goods under transport. But it is probably much more complex than that. It also shares many similarities with organized crime(a company of men decide to ignore the law).

Anyway you slice it, people probably just want the crime to sound(worse/cooler) than it really is. It always sorts of bugs me to equate one of the worst crimes to one of the least. Might as well call it "software rape" at that point. And that is probably closer to the actual crime than piracy.

I fully understand you, but then, copying copyrighted data can't be piracy (because literal piracy is stealing).