How we characterize illegal acts is a matter of personal opinion. However, in the case of copyright infringement specifically, American case law and statute are both pretty clear: the law itself explicitly characterizes copyright piracy as property theft, and courts have repeatedly treated it as such in their findings and decisions, regularly awarding significant statutory and punitive damages in copyright piracy cases (for example here, here, here, here, here, and here).
A new survey poll just revealed what a lot of people think and believe when it comes to piracy of entertainment contents and most people do believe it is not morally wrong to pirate video games and movies even though it is officially illegal in most countries.
