Is piracy theft?
Before you answer, let's get a few things straight.
1.I am saying the word "theft" not in the legal sense, but in the moral, ethnic sense.
2.I am saying piracy in the way of: buying a game,movie,etc., copying it, and giving away torrents, or other forms of the game/movie, etc. through the internet, for free. As in, for example, Pirate Bay

Yes and no. It's too much of a grey area for a concrete answer.

I suppose that's my point...
I've seen a lot of this kind of images all over the web...
Anyways, what I mean is that: games (I'm just going to say games) bought from the store have a lot more features (multiplayer, etc.) than pirated games, so someone that has the money, ability, etc. to do so without say, paying a few thousand dollars to fly to a different country, etc. is just going to buy the game. However, if someone does not have any/all of the above, why make it illegal for him to obtain a copy of a game that he would otherwise never play?
The creator of the game is not going to get MORE money if that person doesn't play, quite the contrary: that person will, if he likes the game, tell his able-to-buy-games friend what an awesome game that is, and the friend will buy it.

I mean, would piracy count as a "sin"?

Once you hit religious territory, I think that's a matter of what you're pirating. If it's something that blatantly has an FBI warning on it, and the (game/movie/album/whatever) has some sort of indication that it should not be pirated, then it's both illegal, and probably a sin. Also, does it make you feel guilty? If you are, or you're unsure, it's best to talk to somebody that you trust that could help you better (a priest or a close friend, rather than a forum of strangers). However, is it something that seems "okay" to pirate? An EP that an up and coming band has released for free, or a documentary that the producers allow you to stream online? There are some occasions where an artist getting noticed or getting a message out is more important than making them money. I have a friend in a religious rock group that supports his music getting pirated (let's call it "shared"), simply because it helps spread his (religious) message. In simpler words, it's not stealing if it's a gift from the artist. But then again, if you like something you got for free, it's not a bad idea to say, "Thank you."
Sure, there's the argument that by making a copy, you're not directly stealing anything. However, you're diminishing the value of every other copy of whatever you're pirating (by a very very very small amount). Think of it like counterfeiting money (a bad analogy). Sure, you're not robbing a bank, but every time you counterfeit a bill, you are saturating the economy and contributing to inflation. Of course, if you do it once, the effects are minimal, to the point of being ignorable. But if (you take these numbers I'm going to make up for the sake of argument) one in every five people counterfeited a hundred dollars a day every day, the effects would be enormous.
Let me finish by saying that I am no expert on this subject. This is just my opinion as I see it. As I said, consult somebody that you know and trust more. Also, I admit that I pirate myself. That's because using Bittorrent while wearing an eyepatch and talking like a pirate makes you awesome.

I think that a better question is whether piracy is worse than publishers who screw over artists/developers/whatever, thus increasing the price and increasing the will to pirate by some due to increased prices.

If I can stream it online, I can pirate it. I feel about as bad as I would owning an Ipad and living in a city with a decent 3g/4g network or good wireless internet. I will usually buy it if I like it, because you always sacrifice quality when you pirate. I will usually delete it if I don't like it.
If it is an indie band (or one I actually know I want to support) I will buy the stuff. If I am just testing the waters I will download it.
The pirate bay is filled with scum and villainy. Azureus (vuze) is better.

Wrong. Anything based on this is faulty.

The faulty word here is "always". Photocopying a page from a book is pirating. What quality are you losing there?

Technically you actually do lose quality there. However, in many to most digital cases, you lose nothing aside from the physical medium which you probably didn't even care about to begin with. Dvd rips of movies lose no quality, and if you don't have a dvd player, actually enhances the quality for you. (Same for blu-ray movies.) You don't lose anything for single-player games or music, either.

That being said, I advocate buying things, but do not condemn pirates, because the entire system is screwed up thanks to publishers.

Unfortunately for the parties that complain about piracy, the fault that their medium is so readily pirate-able is in their hands. When someone uploads anything to the internet, to be streamed or sitting in the background, to think that no one will find the file is ignorance. This can be stretched to fit anything that is available in the digital form (games, movies, software).

My opinion? If a musician is good, they will be able to recover the money with live shows and merchandise. The tech illiterate market will continue buying films by disk and can show their ticket stub.

On a side note; if pirates thieve goods, do they commit the namesake of piracy?

By me own reckoning, piracy be a necessary evil for the same reasons said before.

I may be somewhat biased here however, since my ancestors spent some time raiding around the Mediterranean.

...(also) I really like the physical medium...

So it IS evil?
(Keep in mind what was said in the OP)
If it is evil, who is doing the evil here: the person thst has bought the game and uploaded it, or the person who has downloaded the game?

Both are evil. But the person who uploaded it more so. The person who cracked it is the most evil. Oh, and by evil I mean awesome.

I think that piracy is pessimistic way of dealing with perceived unfairness; it takes more effort to change the system and "establish justice" than it does to break the rules and thumb your nose at the system and the poor fools who don't know better (yes it is a blanket comment I just made, I mean no offense, but that is the general impression of piracy that I have from my life experience--what else do I have?)

so, whether or not piracy is wrong or evil or a sin, it is not heroic or noble. Supporting your family by working at a legitimate employment (say, at the publishing company) does, however, seem to be.

Eh IP is shaky ground anyway, it's illegal but that does not make it immoral.

Yes,piracy is theft because it affects the selling of original copies and also on the profit collection of the movie.

There's a great episode of Extra Credits on Piracy. Somewhere on PennyArcade.com.

Piracy would be okay in theory should be okay if you can't get a copy of the item in your region, it's copyright-free, or it's out of print (print being a relative term).

This is highly contested.

But what of the person who borrows the disc from a friend? Or the one who rents it from Blockbuster or Netflix or whatever? There is still only one price paid for the disc (granted in the latter the price is that of a distribution license) and that person is benifiting the industry as much as he would had he pirated.

However, piracy makes material more available, so the viewer is more likely to see the sequel of a movie he saw and liked online than he is to take his chances and possibly waste his money seeing the original in theaters.

By the non-pirates, I noticed recently. Some (or many?) people apparently don't ever bother to buy any music at all when they can download it, including their favorite songs.

But then again, it's great for those (like myself) who hear a song online, then look in stores for things by the same artist. People like to test before they buy, and the testing booths at the mall don't cut it for most. So if you have the option to download a couple songs from an album before you buy it, why wouldn't you?