I mean, I can be as much of a pedant as you and post an unsourced definition of ‘ip theft’ … or maybe you could just admit you’d never heard of the term ‘ip theft’, or are unaware of its use.

Its a pretty commonly used term, especially amongst government regulatory and business organizations, as well as academics who study policy, in the US.

The term itself, its phrasing, is intentionally constructed to frame copyright infringement as a form of theft, stealing something that doesn’t belong to you.

The psychological framing of the term is meant to frame losses from someone committing copyright infringement against you as equivalent to losses from being robbed.

The entire point of the usage of this term is to mold public perception.

Here’s some examples where very prominent US institutions/organizations use some construction or variation of ‘ip theft’ an an umbrella term to refer to all kinds of copyright, trademark and/or patent infringement:

FBI

fbi.gov/…/countering-the-growing-intellectual-pro…

KPMG (huge business consulting group)

kpmg.com/us/…/theft-intellectual-property.html

DHS (Homeland Security)

www.dhs.gov/intellectual-property-rights

IPRC (Intellectual Property Rights Center)

www.iprcenter.gov

And finally, literally IPTheft.org, which basically functions as an all-in-one training/resource hub that connects business people to all kinds of resources to report when they have suffered… IP theft.

www.iptheft.org