Theft

Theft is a term for stealing or acting as a thief. Theft is misappropriating something that belongs to someone else. For theft, an unjust gain is thus required, with an intention to gain an unjust enrichment. This unjust enrichment means that theft requires appropriation of a good, whereby a thief must treat the stolen object as if it were his own. Multiple crimes are closely related, yet are treated differently legally. For example, if an object is stolen with the sole intention of destroying it, this constitutes vandalism. Theft also differs from embezzlement as the perpetrator of embezzlement has an object already in his possession while in the case of theft, a thief takes an object from someone else. If theft is committed by means of violence or threats of immediate violence, it is legally considered robbery. Copying copyrighted works or other infringements of intellectual property rights is legally not considered theft but is considered a crime in itself.