That, I think, is an undervalued point here - Piracy as a signaling mechanism is, I think, why an awful lot of what's currently out there for digital delivery (Hulu, especially) exists.
The industry's still not entirely sure what a viable market model looks like - that's part of the reason why Fox pulled their 8-day move. Bittorrent's shown people will do it for free, Hulu's shown more people will do it if it's easier even if they have to watch ads, Netflix has shown people will pay for it (though recently they've shown the selection needs to be bigger), but nobody's hit the magic bullet that both consumers and industry will accept yet.
In the mean time, piracy is certainly a valuable signal for the industry that demand exists - it's just that the price and mechanisms aren't right yet. (I'm sure the content producers feel the same way /s)