Actually the author himself is somewhat harmed by this situation. I would be salty too. When I wish to write my CV, I can say: my text have been published at X and Y. Especially nice if it's an important and well known publication. Now a part of his CV is literally erased, he can't access his own texts anymore (not even on Internet Archive). That's... utterly ridiculous. It's a common practice to send the author a copy (or multiple) of the text he has published, he has every right to own a copy of them. Now the copy that was intended to be available to everyone is not available even to him. Something of the sort really has happened to me too when a website I published an article on a site underwent a redesign and now the text just isn't available anymore. Admittedly it's still on IA, but it's an awkward situation.
You've put it out there for free, though, and the data literally ends up on my machine because you made it do that, so what's the problem with me saving the data on my machine for later, and potentially sharing it elsewhere for free again?
then publishing it as your own is theft
This scenario (misattribution of content) has nothing to do with the previous discussion. The other commenter is making an analogy to CDs, owning a CD and lending it to others doesn't mean you're claiming its content is your own creation.
Theft implies deprivation of ownership. Calling this theft is like calling piracy theft. It may be illegal by this or that metric, but it's not normal theft.
Actually the author himself is somewhat harmed by this situation. I would be salty too. When I wish to write my CV, I can say: my text have been published at X and Y. Especially nice if it's an important and well known publication. Now a part of his CV is literally erased, he can't access his own texts anymore (not even on Internet Archive). That's... utterly ridiculous. It's a common practice to send the author a copy (or multiple) of the text he has published, he has every right to own a copy of them. Now the copy that was intended to be available to everyone is not available even to him. Something of the sort really has happened to me too when a website I published an article on a site underwent a redesign and now the text just isn't available anymore. Admittedly it's still on IA, but it's an awkward situation.