I am enjoying the game, except one thing in the story that keeps coming up and causes me cognitive dissonance. I am in the first system and it isn't clear to me why we are not considered Pirates.

The characters are always saying stuff like "Don't be a Pirate" or "Kill all the Pirates". And then we do stuff like steal from factions/corporations that are neutral to us. Why doesn't that cause us to be Pirates?

We literally accidentally kidnapped someone. I am so confused.