There's nothing we can do to stop this. I don't know how big an impact it has on the media industry and to the extent at which it hurts it however it's beyond stopping.
In the future we wont even be paying for cable service anymore. We're going to be paying for just data. Services like Netflix, Apple TV and whatever the heck's running on Google TV are taking over. Youtube and video streaming services alike are going to dominate-- they already are. If anything's hurting the future of the entertainment industry as it is today it's that the end user is being allocated with more freedoms than big companies want to allow for.
We're looking at a setup where revenues are gained through advertising, paying for the actual distribution, which will essentially become digital streaming will be a fraction of the profits earned. I think this is an inevitable fait but a fait which shall be achieved regardless of modern day pirating.

