While I do not condone piracy, to be fair, if you go for currency exchange rate vs. median income in those countries that host the pirated software, a 10 dollar model costs the equivalent of 200 dollars to them. Hence part of the reason why a piracy subculture thrives among them.

I've been badgering all the main vendor sites to get off their darned butts and start sending out takedown notices to the torrent sites for years.

It doesn't really work that way. It is up to the country in question to uphold US copyright laws. E. Europe and parts of mainland E. Asia do not do this. This is why you do not see torrent sites on US or western European servers. Although this could change unless we cave to certain EU member demands that we ban the use of "Champagne", etc in the US because somehow these are brand names in France/Greece, despite the fact that they are all named after the location that they were made in. Edit: Oh, lovely, the US and Canada recently caved to the Champagne copyright BS. Oh, how dare ANYONE violate our copyright on the name of a region of France! How dare Champagne, Switzerland call THEIR inferior wines (gaaaasp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) champagne! Disgusts me beyond belief, esp. the Switzerland and US parts.