People who are intent on finding illegally copied content because they don't want to pay for it aren't really lost sales. They won't pay at all if they don't have the free option.

However, there are a large number of people who will take the opportunity to download free illegal content if it's basically handed to them on a silver platter. And I think these people are the ones who represent actual lost sales.

Currently, when you search for a particular Poser product in a search engine, there's a decent chance that you'll get an entire page (if not several) of download sites before you even see a mention of a legitimate copy. That's absolutely ridiculous. And of course it tempts those people in the second category I described because it makes it just too damned easy.

Google was supposed to be doing something about this precise issue -- and it certainly has the power and the ability to do it. But so far, I haven't noticed a big change.

Would making illegal download sites invisible to search engines make piracy go away? Of course not! Some people will always be more willing to expend the effort to get something for "free" than to work a traditional job and pay for it, especially when that something is, I dunno, a fully functional copy of C4D.. But not handing these sites out as the top results in a search by every single Joe Ordinary who is looking for a $10 Poser product might well put a big dent in illegal downloads of the products made by small businesses and freelancers. 

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Edit: I don't like the idea of a sort of "tax" on data transfer because there is a TON of legitimately free or creative commons content on the web, and it and open source creations are some of the most beautiful aspects of the internet. All the tax would do is give money to the government at the expense of creators who want the joy (and often the powerful marketing juice) of sharing (at least some of) their stuff with the community.

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PoserPro 2014, PS CS5.5 Ext, Nikon D300. Win 8, i7-4770 @ 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon 8570, 12 GB RAM.