I'm only saying this because your entire point is about being pedantic with the language, one of the definitions of steal[0] is "to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment." In this case, whether its a copy or not is immaterial. I've seen a bunch of people parroting the line that if you're not taking a tangible thing you're not stealing. This is plainly false both by connotation and denotation.

0: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/steal