Your basic premise is spot on, but it really is nowhere as simple as you make it sound. There is that other thread running here about the recent goings-on in Sweden -
http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/f...?currentPage=1 - which should give an idea about the complexity, effort and uncertainty of going after these people. And bear in mind that Sweden, although liberal in copyright terms by European/American standards, does at least have standards.
And from the wider perspective, no-one can have any illusions that the software, music and movie industries are actually winning their war against pirates. Despite the millions of dollars they have put into fighting it.
Which doesn't mean do nothing. This industry needs to grow up and the businesses in it have to start operating as businesses. When that happens, operators who refuse to work to certain standards should be ostracized: banned from trade shows, boards, and any other way of publicizing themselves within the industry.
How ludicrous is it that - for illustration - Adult Friend Finder, the "bank" for just about every file-sharing site out there,
could have a booth at a show alongside BangBros, whose content appears on such sites? How ludicrous is it that legitimate affiliates are promoting sites like BangBros and also sponsors who support sites which undermine their sales?
Branded stolen content surely does produce a trickle of sales. With enough of it out there, that trickle might be a river. Still you might expect that no-one in their right minds could believe that these sales are more than a fraction of what is lost because so much pirated material is floating around. Yet apparently that is exactly what many must think, otherwise why are they doing nothing about it? Has anyone looked into the possibility of a class action on behalf of the sponsors whose copyright material is being used by such sites, against the sponsors profiting from those sites? A conspiracy suit for example, might be cheaper and more effective than going after the sites themselves.
Much more obviously, when an affiliate signs up for a program, why not check his site and if he is promoting programs which allow themselves to be promoted on file-sharing sites, etc., refuse to accept him as an affiliate? If he trades with or otherwise links to sites operating in the gray/black area of this business, ditto.
There are surely some smart people in this business, so why do they all act dumb? Competition is one thing: it makes the industry grow and become stronger. But scams are entirely something else: they make our job harder and weaken us. They take money out of our pockets and put nothing back. It makes zero sense to tolerate them or anyone associated with them.