By this logic wage theft isn't theft since the employee never had the money in their possession.

Let's exaggerate things. An indie dev sells a game for 5$ and when all things are split up they have 2$ going to them. They sell one copy but with the tracker they put into the game, they can tell that there's a million person that have played it. Their income for the work they put in is 2$, a million -1 people got to enjoy what they created through piracy. So you're telling me, no one has stolen anything from that creator?