I’m a thief.

Well, I used to be.

But I decided a few years ago to put my wicked ways behind me, forever confined to my past.

In the digital age, many people of my generation have had a hard time coming to grips with what is, and what isn’t "property."

Things that are created – regardless of what form they take – music, movies, photos, software, etc. – these are all property.

I have realized – finally – that it is wrong to steal this property from its rightful owner.

It shames me to say that I should have reached this realization decades ago.

There are no excuses, but there were considerable forces that led me to believe what I was doing was "okay" – even when deep down I should have known that it wasn’t.

It started in high school.

I was part of a group of kids that spent a lot of time together – we were a pretty tight group, and we had a lot of great times that I would not trade for the world.

One guy was a little older than the rest of us, and he had a great stereo system and an incredible record collection. Whenever he would buy a new record, the rest of us would go out and buy blank cassette tapes and he would copy the records on to the tapes for us.

I won’t say that "everybody" was doing it, but there were an awful lot of kids who would make copies of their friends’ records onto cassette tapes.

It was such a common practice, that I don’t think any of us really realized it was wrong.

We would justify it by saying things like, "I bought the tape….the tape belongs to me…the record was already paid for….etc….etc…."

There are a lot of ways you can justify doing wrong things if it’s something you really want and you don’t want to pay for it.

As a crime, it was pretty far down the list. I’d say it was a few notches below jaywalking.

However – and I didn’t fully admit this to myself till recently, it was stealing, and it was wrong.

Wrong is wrong and it doesn’t matter if it’s a little bit, or a lot.

While copyright laws allowed for my friend to record the albums onto his cassettes so he could listen to them in his car, these laws did not allow for him to make copies to give to friends.

The dictionary defines intellectual property as property that results from original creative thought, as patents, copyright material and trademarks.

The music that was created by the artists we listened to belongs to whoever holds the copyright.

It doesn’t get any plainer or simpler than that.

To copy the music onto cassette tapes without permission, and without paying anything – not even one penny to the owner of this property, was stealing, and it was wrong.

We were taking something of value that belonged to someone else and we were not paying for it – to me that is the plain and simple definition of "stealing."

It has become harder for people to understand this concept in a digital Internet age, when digital music, photos, software, etc. can easily be duplicated an infinite amount of times without any loss of quality.

The Internet gives people easy access to billions of songs, movies, software programs, etc. and they can do all this stealing in the comfort and privacy of their homes without any tangible fear of consequences. The phenomenon is just too widespread and too commonplace for anything beyond the occasional "token" prosecution of ultra-high-level offenders.

There are many people who feel justified in this kind of theft.

I see them all the time.

They are good and honest people.

They would never, in a million years, dream of running out of a department store with a TV without paying for it, but they won’t think twice to go online and illegally download their favorite song, movie, etc.

And why is it wrong?

Well, the bible says, "Thou shalt not steal."

Those are four painfully precise and clear words.

But even beyond that, the golden rule clearly applies here.

You wouldn’t want anyone to steal from you, so you should not steal from anyone else.

Stealing weakens every single one of us and it will come around to bite us eventually.

That guy you may be laughing with about the latest movie you downloaded and copied may be the one in your garage a few weeks down the road helping himself to your power tools.

Whenever someone puts money for one newspaper in a vending machine and grabs ten copies – that’s stealing.

Whenever someone takes someone else’s work and passes it off as their own – that’s stealing – in this business, we call that plagiarism and that is crime that is many notches above jaywalking.

Whenever we give ourselves permission to do this kind of thing, by example we are contributing to a culture that says it is "okay" and that can only lead to more stealing.

Stealing is wrong, regardless of degree. It doesn’t matter if it’s just one song downloaded from a file-sharing web site on the Internet, or if you put on a ski mask and break in to steal all the gold in Fort Knox – it’s wrong, regardless of degree.

I’ve done it. I’ve justified it, and life has taught me that it’s not justifiable, and so I have resolved to never do it again – not on any level.