Don't see this happening any time soon. As long as piracy is easier than purchasing (and viewing) content it will happen at a massive scale.
I'm still not paying for tv shows simply because there's no good way to do that (or I haven't heard about it yet). I don't watch them on tv, because I don't want ads and I don't own/need a tv in general. I'd happily pay a pound or two per episode I watch (you can get older series for £10 on 6 dvds, so that's not a bad price I think) if someone gave me the opportunity.
I think the whole "As long as piracy is easier than purchasing" concept is getting old. It is one step longer. For me it's virtually the same. If someone organised a good content distribution network, it would be even better since I could get planned downloading and wouldn't have to wait for the video to buffer, just because it's on some dodgy hosting in Thailand. I don't see either RIAA or the producers wanting to resolve the situation really - maybe it's still too profitable to do the silly war on piracy... Meanwhile, I'll keep giving my money (page views / ads impressions) to some random guy who wasn't involved in making the show at all. It's rather sad really.
I'm not arguing for that position, but that's the way it's going. So any time soon could be sooner than you think.
As for the article, what a load of nonsense, 'hey use these instead' article is quite obviously advocating piracy, whichever way they try and spin it, disclaimer or not. The disclaimer:
All of these services should be used for legal downloads, of course
There is no sane person in the world that believes that a torrent site's primary purpose is for legal downloads.
You cannot say that. That's absurd. There are tons of torrent sites with legal content, and whose primary purpose is the sharing of legal content. For example http://www.clearbits.net.
> Tis only a matter of time before laws start getting passed, ISPs are forced to monitor and people start getting cut-off/fined.
Bypassing whatever ISPs put in place will likely still be easier than purchasing, especially given that pirated content typically has a higher quality than paid content. It's a double-whammy: paying for DVDs or CDs forces you to see ads (occasionally telling you not to pirate!), in some cases download DRMed, locked content, and usually at a lower bitrate than the pirated options.
Not only is it easier to pirate, but you usually end up with a higher-quality and less annoying product.
Edit: The solution to all of this is for the content distributors to realize and understand the situation. If they put all the high-quality content online and provide direct, fast downloads (without treating me like a criminal!) then the world will change and most people will buy content...I think.
I have no idea why you think otherwise, who do you think torrents?
It's a totally strange position to take. I do not understand it.
On the other hand I totally agree with you and the poster above me about the ease, quality (in terms of advert and stupid menu-less content) and speed on getting new content, it's absurd we're in a situation where getting illegal content is quicker and easier than getting legal content. But that's another matter.
Stating that a piece of software exists is hardly "advocating" using it for illegal purposes. Most of the usage of torrents probably is copyright-infringing downloads, but that's not its only purpose and that doesn't mean a journalist can't talk about it.
Will that actually accomplish anything? I think it will just push things deeper underground, and force downloaders to encrypt everything, which is at best a minor inconvenience.
As someone whose colleagues work on BitTorrent for distributed systems research, that's patently false. At the moment I'm in the planning stages of a service which will use BitTorrent for distributed computing a la MapReduce.