...The vendors could also be doing a lot more issuing of takedown notices in the torrent sites.  This is the most popular distribution method and only Renderotica issues DMCA complaints.  There's one main torrent site for Poser/Daz stuff and I never see their stuff there.
     The vendors themselves could also take a little time to engage the pirates in the sharing forums.  If they saw that the content artists are just regular folks trying to make a few lousy bucks doing something they are passionate about, I'm certain it would turn a few.  I confess to having been a serious (and damned proud of it!) pirate for many decades but was turned by gaming.  I loved the Half Life universe and began buying the games and add-ons to support it.  It felt so good that when I left games for Poser, I continued supporting the artists.

Takedown notices only work if the administrators can be sued or the server host is within an appropriate jurisdiction. You can also find just about any DAZ product you want for free without having to go through a torrent site and even when DAZ knows about it, there's little they can do against the people distributing the files. Once the site goes down, another pops up overnight. (As far as Renderotica products go, I actually haven't seen very many products there I'd want. I'm no prude, but there just ain't that much there that's worth stealing. Admittedly, I haven't scoured their offerings - I suppose there could be a few neat items. But there's only so many ways to put Tab A into Slot B...)

I suppose one can attempt to rely on the kindness of strangers when asking a pirate, nicely, to stop breaking the law... So, the next time that someone is in my house, robbing it, I'll try asking nicely for them to stop and, perhaps, maybe ask them to pay me for the damage that they have done to my door. Maybe that will work?  :)

I guess the point is this: Should an artist have to beg people not to steal from them? Is that the sort of marketplace that this genre will turn into? "Pardon me, I can't work on that new project, yet. I have to go out to the torrent sites and engage people there so that some of them might stop stealing my stuff." It's sad. It shouldn't be that way.

I think that taking the personal approach can work. And, I think that's one of the only alternatives that artists have in order to directly affect some sort of solution. But, that's only going to net a few momentarily conscientious thieves who, once that artist is out of sight and out of mind, will just start downloading another stolen product. What are distributors for if artists have to go point-to-point in order to protect their IP or attempt to gain some sort of compensation from their work from people who now have their product in their hands?

I commend you on your "conversion." :) You're a success story! You turned from your evil ways and now walk in the light. ;) But, for every one of you, there's five people that don't do that. There's five people sitting in a pirate site or on the darkweb that are sucking down torrents and downloads with abandon, simply because they can. Whether or not they'd ever actually want to buy such products is beside the point - If I steal a car, but don't want to drive it, that doesn't mean I can't get charged with stealing. It's still theft, regardless of why I did it or whatever other intentions I might have. It's not an "evaluation copy", it's not a "test drive", it's not a quick "trial version." It's just stealing and stealing is wrong. Stealing hurts people. Theft of IP damages the system that directly supports the creation of new IPs and that helps support the propagation of new ideas, ideas that have value.

One of these days there is going to be a reckoning. Somewhere, somehow, someone is going to finally have had enough of this and they'll be joined by many, many whom have lots of money and lots of lobbying power in their respective governments. Is that what we want to see? Do we want to see more internet legislation, more government control, more censorship, more clandestine monitoring of user's activities, more random DMCA notices and "let's make an example of them" sorts of lawsuits? I wouldn't think so, but e-product pirates are rushing forward with near complete abandon and that is the sort of internet environment that they are going to force upon the rest of us, should e-commerce continue to be held hostage by them. Eventually, something is going to break and we'll be the ones that are forced to pay for fixing it.