[gameman144]

Does it? There are loads of types of theft that don't remove the good or asset from the owner:

Identity theft, IP theft, theft of private digital assets (e.g. photos, writings, music)

[ipaddr]

Those are labels. Identity theft is more identity fraud. Theft of digital assets is copyright infringement.

[gameman144]

This is interesting, I definitely use "theft" colloquially for all these things.

For the digital assets, I mentally bucket copyright infringement and theft differently. For instance, if I copy someone's photography and sell it, that's copyright infringement (not theft). However, if I hacked into someones Google photos and sold the contents, I'd consider that theft (since there was no intent for the material to be available)

Granted, it's fair to disagree here, so I'm not adamantly against the definition that requires removing access or anything.

[margalabargala]

Identity theft is someone else stealing money from the bank, and the bank telling you that's your problem now.

[exe34]

these are deliberate attempts to shift the overton window.

[IshKebab]

Identity theft in particular is a poor term because it shifts the blame from the verifier (the one who actually got things wrong) to the victim.

[ndriscoll]

Actually it attempts to shift liability from the victim (the bank, who was defrauded) to an unrelated party who may or may not be affiliated with the bank at all.

[ghurtado]

"lots of theft is not theft. Like for instance, all these things that are not theft"

... Lots of murder doesn't have a victim...

.... Lots of arson doesn't involve a fire...

... Lots of trespass involves not taking a single step from your work desk ..

... War is peace, peace is war...

[gameman144]

I think the above things are commonly considered theft. Totally fair to contend that the definition is wrong (and IMO that's a reasonable-minded contention), but I don't it's particularly double-think to bucket these digital "thefts" in the same category as physical thefts, either.