From what I have seen, they initial guys shared a link to the database, not any content. The equivalent of telling people: "Look at this unlocked door I found." They did not "steal" anything as far as I know.

Also, the analogy doesn't work either. What if it really was intended to be public? Making a copy is not analogous to stealing something, it's analogous to taking a picture.

PS: Maybe to make it clearer what I am thinking of. A real court case that happened: A person found a bunch of documents on a government website, just sitting there. He decided to share them. Turns out they were not supposed to be public. The government tried to prosecute the guy who had no idea the files were not public. They thankfully lost.

How can it be the responsibility of a person to try to figure out if these files are supposed to be public or are public on accident? Yes, these guys had a good guess that this was an accident, but so what. We don't prosecute people for having good guesses.