You sound well-spoken, yet you're doing what everyone else is doing. You're encouraging a set of circumstances that somehow negates the fact that it's theft.
A starving man stealing bread so he doesn't starve to death is still committing theft. By the very definition of the word, it is theft. Theft is, in itself, a form of wrongdoing.
Again, I fully agree that we can justify it morally under certain circumstances.
What I don't understand is where the disconnect is. Do you genuinely disagree that it's theft?