If say a long time ago I bought a game I wanted to play again now on newer hardware so I downloaded a ROM of the game, a game I may well still own along with the old hardware, to play on the new. Will I get called a thief by the game company?
See they re-released their older games with an emulator to play them on the new hardware which they want me to pay for. So I get called 'pirate' for even considering downloading a ROM of the old game I want to play on newer hardware as it was on the old hardware. I have taken nothing from them.
I owned this game. They simply want more. I had it and may still even have the original boxed copy. Now, effectively, I do not. Who's the real thief here?