> assuming it’s copyrighted material [...] They’re just stealing someone else’s content and facilitating its theft.

All content created by someone is copyrighted by default, but that does not mean it is theft to share it. Linux ISOs are copyrighted, but the copyright allows sharing, for example. But even in cases where this is not permitted, it would not be theft, but copyright infringement.

> the altruism of letting other piggyback from their scraping doesn’t negate that they essentially are stealing data.

It does. OpenStreetMap (OSM) data comes with a copyright licence that allows sharing the data. The problem with scraping is that the scrapers are putting unacceptably load on the OSM servers.

> Stealing from grocery store and giving away some of what you steal doesn’t absolve the original theft.

This is only comparable if the company that scrapes the data enters the data centre and steals the servers used by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (containing the material to be scraped), and the thing stolen from the grocery store also contains some intellectual property to be copied (e.g. a book or a CD, rather than an apple or an orange).

Stealing is not theft because so-called intellectual "property" is not property at all.

If anything, it's copryght holders that are infringing on everyone else's right to free speech by wanting to control the communication between others.

If someone made an exact replica of your car, and drove away in the replica never to be seen again, would you report your car as stolen?

“Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates... When I pointed it out to my roommate, he said, "Do I know you?” ― Steven Wright