Both Ashwin and Arnab are right in their views. It is not that the Technology of Bittorrent is wrong. It is the intentions of the users that are wrong and we can't blame Bittorrent for that. What avi said is also right. Many people are ignorant, and most of them don't even know that they have to buy softwares (At least in India). Such is the affect of torrents on people, also I must blame the software companies (Most of them) for not creating awareness among people. Also, if we can look at the kind of hacking that took place 5 to 10 years ago, their motive is entirely different. They used to hack

1. just to show off that they are hackers
2. To reveal bugs in softwares openly and tell the software developers to fix it, who otherwise won't even notice those bugs.

Both of the above reasons are not at all harmful. But, as time passed by the intentions changed. With lot of e-commerce and online shopping going on, many hackers are hacking to steal money. It's so sad to see people who are being ruled by Money.