That's only true when you ignore many, many common usages of the word "theft". I would hazard a guess that your interpretations are along the dictionary lines of "depriving a person of their property." However, here are some commonly used forms of the word (supported by wikipedia and government sites) that don't fit that definition:

- Wage theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft

- Time theft: https://www.adp.com/resources/articles-and-insights/articles...

- Identity theft: https://www.usa.gov/identity-theft

- Theft of services: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_of_services

- Theft of trade secrets: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=TRADE+SECRETS

- Attention theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_theft

- Data theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_theft

- Electricity theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_theft

- Joke theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_theft

- Stolen valor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_valor

And here are more colloquial usages of theft of abstract things:

- Credit card theft (it's really just the number that is "stolen")

- Password theft (usually "stolen" during a data breach, more numbers being stolen)

- Bitcoin theft (even more numbers being "stolen".)

Here's a very simple explanation for this: In common parlance, "theft" generally means taking something of economic value -- either physical, like property, or abstract, like labor -- from someone without giving any value in return against their wishes.

If you extend this line of thought, you'll see why IP laws exist and why these abstract forms of theft are illegal.

And when examined from that perspective, those coherent reasons are basically just different ways of saying "because I can get away with it."