As the original rights holders haven't put any/much effort into preserving their back catalogues, I'd say piracy has ended up being a valuable trait. Allowing for the preservation of software from rich companies like EA, all the way down the spectrum to a single individual developer (can't think of any to reference).
So even if piracy was detrimental to companies at the time, it's now turned out to be the historical saviour of games long forgotten by the rights holder.
A few years back I contacted a few developers/publishers suggesting a service similar to iTunes. Were a WinUAE configured game could be bought for one £/$/euro. Suffice to say none replied and I'm not aware of any such service getting made.