It's been suggested that we are twisting the issue. But I'm attempting to answer a fundamental question. Is it illegal?

Now people creatively turn this discussion into an issue of semantics. (well it's not really stealing if you make a copy so on and so forth.)

What is so complicated about obtaining something that when it was created SOMEONE agreed albeit through purchase to the following legal verbage:

(Unauthorized Duplication is a Violation of Applicable Laws.)

Unauthorized = Without Permission
Duplication = to make copies of
Violation = nonobservance of a condition
Applicable Laws = Rules and Procedures / limits

Although people seem to have a problem with the term "theft" as it relates to certain violations of the above legal verbage.

If I own an ISP and I provide access to my customers. Which means use of my network facilities and this (agreement) includes bandwidth limits, let's say 256Kbps bandwidth limitations.

Now this customer figures out that using a special software he's able to use 512Kbps bandwidth on my pipes.

Now the customer can argue that this is a performance gain for him as he did not modify my network in anyway to accomplish this higher speed.

So, to charge this individual with theft of service is unfair on my part because it doesn't satisfy the offenders definition of theft.

Overall I am suggesting that because I created the agreement --I get to determine what constitutes theft of my products, services and resources and the courts will back this agreement based on the legal verbage of my agreement with the customer.