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Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
Not in the US. Civil not criminal matter.
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It is certainly not theft in most states (which in most states requires intent to deprive the owner of possession, as well as appropriating the item yourself). But even in the 1980s home videos made it abundantly clear with their FBI Warnings that "Federal law provides severe civil
and criminal penalties for unauthorized reproduction".
Copyright infringement in the US is a (criminal) misdemeanor for minor infractions or a felony for larger infractions, in addition to being a civil tort. It's probably unlikely someone will be prosecuted for minor infractions, but it's possible.
https://www.justice.gov/usam/crimina...nd-18-usc-2319
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The principal criminal statute protecting copyrighted works is 17 U.S.C. § 506(a), which provides that "[a]ny person who infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain" shall be punished as provided in 18 U.S.C. § 2319. Section 2319 provides, in pertinent part, that a 5-year felony shall apply if the offense "consists of the reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, with a retail value of more than $2,500." 18 U.S.C. § 2319(b)(1).
The 1992 amendments to section 2319 have made it possible to pursue felony level sanctions for violations relating to all types of copyrighted works, including computer software and other works written, stored or transmitted in a digital format, if the other elements of the statute are satisfied. Felony penalties only attach to violations of a victim's rights of reproduction or distribution in the quantity stated. A misdemeanor shall apply if the defendant does not meet the numerical and monetary thresholds.
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See also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimin..._United_States