I agree that our intuitive reaction is to think that in one case there is clearly a victim whereas in the other case this is much less clear. However as I said when I brought up the omnivore vs dog/cat-eater example, our intuitive moral reactions are often unreliable and we need to always subject them to critical examination.

When I ask myself, why does it seem to me, intuitively, that there is clearly a victim in the case of espionage but not in the case of piracy, I find that I cannot point to anything other than the sheer "graphical" character of espionage. When I think of espionage what comes to mind is careful, deliberate, calculated planning and execution (the evil villain in cartoons and all that), whereas when I think of piracy I think of a harmless dude at home sitting in front of his computer wrapped in bathrobes.

The question though is whether this sort of difference has moral relevance. And I'm strongly inclined to think not. First notice that neither the spy nor the harmless dude physically harmed anyone. The damage is entirely monetary. (I will spare your American sensibilities and not bring up the violent character of those thefts I brought up in my OP).

Now you may say, the harmless dude at best cost a few dollars damage but the spy cost billions. But on reflection this doesn't hold water, because (i) there are millions of these harmless dudes, so the damages add up and (ii) the damage caused by the spy is not on any single individual but is also similarly distributed, so at the individual level it could may well be very tiny.

I could go on, but I hope you'll agree that the challenge I've poses for Americans (how to reconcile their different attitudes towards piracy and industrial espionage) is far from a trivial one and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise.

I should also add the following point. Suppose in the future 3D duplication became a reality, so that those who want more KFC can just buy one and perform 3D "copy-paste" (sitting at home wrapped in bathrobes) - no need to steal the secret recipe. Likewise to get one more advanced CPU there is no need to spy and steal the secret blueprint and all that, just 3D "copy paste".

Would you say that, in this future scenario, where making copies of fried chicken/CPU chips are no different from making copies of ebook and mp3s ─── would you say that these acts of "IP theft" also suddenly become virtually "victimless"?

(Typing in a hurry so some editing may need to be done later on)

Addendum: a variant of my parting example above. Programs written in some languages (e.g. Javascript) are much easier to reverse engineer than others (e.g. C). To get the source code of a closed source C program you pretty much have to conduct espionage (hack the developer's computer), whereas to get the source code of a closed source JavaScript program, it may take little more than hitting a few buttons.

Would you argue that if someone's closed source C app source code is stolen via espionage/hacking, the developer has been victimized, but if someone's closed source JavaScript app source code is stolen via "hitting a few buttons", there is now suddenly no victim? It seems to me that holding such a view would have some absurd consequences. Suppose I can write an app in either C or JavaScript, I may then reason: "I should write it in JavaScript, that way I won't ever be victimized." - which I hope you'll agree, is clearly nonsensical.