I've tried to point out more than once that this is stealing, but I just get a shrug of the shoulders and that's the end of the conversation.

Is the shrug, perhaps, shorthand for "Stealing is immoral because it deprives the owner of something they previously had; copyright violation does no such thing, and so if the only reason you believe copyright violation to be immoral is because it's stealing, then that's an unconvincing argument"?

Peter