DEUT947 According to most decisors of Jewish law, intellectual property is considered actual property. Thus, all the laws prohibiting stealing also apply to taking copyrighted material without permission from or payment to the owner. … There are a few Rabbis who believed that an idea cannot be owned, and thus copying intellectual property or books is not stealing per se. Nevertheless, they forbade the practice of copying for different reasons in Jewish law. ... The first reason given is that if a secular law prohibits copying, then Jewish law must follow secular law (in areas that do not conflict with Jewish law). This principle is discussed many times in the sources and it is brought down as Jewish law in numerous places by Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 55:11, Choshen Mishpat 369:6; Rema, Yoreh De'ah 165:1, Choshen Mishpat 207:115, 236:9). ... The second reason is the prohibition of encroaching on someone else's business, which is forbidden in Judaism, ([this] Torah verse). Chatam Sofer specifically says that anyone who will cause others to lose money as a result of copyright infringement and copying anything owned by someone else is guilty of this sin (Responsa of Chatam Sofer, Section 5, Choshen Mishpat 79). (It is estimated that the recording and film industries lose billions of dollars a year because people download songs and films for free instead of paying for them.) The third reason is what is called in legal terms "accepted practice law." Whenever there is a legitimate agreement among the people of the city or any particular industry, this is regarded as binding in Jewish law (Rema, Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 37:22). Since copyright infringement is agreed upon by most law-enforcing countries, this agreement, even if not official law, is binding in Jewish law.