The money saved by not paying for software is not just sitting around waiting to be collected. It's being used for other things, quite likely generating a similar amount of economic activity.

"Reducing the UK’s rate by 10 percentage points by 2013 would generate £5.4 billion ($8.3 billion) in economic activity, raise £1.5 billion in taxes, and create 13,000 high-tech jobs, with 87 percent of the benefits staying in the local economy, the study reckons."

I think reducing piracy is also likely to increase open source software adoption, so it might not be all bad if they decide to intensify their anti-piracy efforts using the economic crisis as a straw man.