Many people (including myself) are eagerly awaiting this version of the movie and its not a surprise that the numbers currently downloading and sharing it are in the thousands. It will be interesting to see any comments from the movie studios about the leak. I'm sure they should have nothing to worry about as more people would rather buy this version than download it, so I'd doubt that this early leak and download craze will damage the sales.
The copies of the movie are currently being distributed on the heaviest scales mainly through XDCC distribution on IRC, BitTorrent sites, and on P2P networks, inlcuding eD2K, which I checked earlier and found more than 5,000 sources for the XviD version. The retail is expected to hit some stores on the 10th and will be fully released around the world on the 14th.