Legally, piracy is not stealing. It is copyright infringement. That's a totally different ball game with different implications.

While stealing even cheap items quickly lands you in legal hot water, just downloading (without uploading) doesn't. I don't know of a single case where someone got a significant fine or even a lawsuit for just downloading (and not redistributing) content.

The legal main difference between stealing and illegaly copying is that when you steal something it's gone.

This changes the damages calculation a lot, since the only damage you caused by copying is the opportunity cost: Since you copied it, they didn't sell it to you. But you might have already bought it in the meantime (then the damages 0), or you might have not bought it at all (then the damages are also 0).

Also, stealing is criminal law, while copyright is civil law, which makes it legally entirely different.

Looks nitpicky, but if you talk about current laws, nitpicky is the whole game.