Every goddamned time an issue of plagiarism comes up, some clever person comes and says "I thought you guys loved piracy! How is this different?"

And the difference is about as profound as the difference between downloading a file and stealing a bike. The main reason that this is so appalling, while file sharing is not, is that it's a case of someone taking credit for someone else's work. There is a huge difference between taking someone else's work and saying "Hey, listen to this cool cover that JoCo did" and taking it and saying "Hey, I wrote this cover of Baby Got Back!"

Another big difference is profit. I think most of people feel like downloading a song or movie for yourself and maybe some friends and enjoying it is fine, and that a site like The Pirate Bay covering their bandwidth costs with ads is totally understandable. But I think most people also think that a guy who burns movies to DVDs and sells them on the street corner is an asshole.

Finally, especially in light of that latter point, you've got one of the big media players, all of whom have lobbied hard for stronger copyright law, refusing to play by the same rules that they want to impose on everyone else.