Like Napster this does provide good solid research material for the big boys.
Sad but true the music industry had little interest in the net before Napsters success.
The same will be for movies/TVs. I bet Apple are already looking to add .mpg files to thier iTunes Store. And this will be based upon research gathered by looking at software like Kazaa.
The pirates can be used to help define the market needs then it is up to the industry to compete. If it does not then there is still the loss of sales and the pirates will win since the market is thiers.
The larger companies could even use the pirates to copy and distribute low quality non packaged versions of thier movies. Would it impact on the sale of high quality movie DVDs? For the short term yes but the people who do buy hi quality movies will continue.
This is not an argument to favour piracy but one that looks at it from a marketing POV. It is there and it is real, and basically it is taking money from the public that should belong to the artist. So I say stop whining coz it is just a waste of effort and money and start using them.
Valan
