Worse. It's counter productive. It's main purpose is to cause pain and trouble for legit buyers and reward people who go for "warez".
The first thing I do when I buy a new piece of software, whether it be Windows itself or just a (relatively) cheap game is find copy protection/activation removers. Games usually runs more smoothly without it and when I buy it, I want to be able make a backup and work from that one (archiving the original media in a safe place, away from daylight and wear and tear).
As for the attempts at quantification of the loss caused by filesharing etc. I "guess" that they are exaggerated to make somebody feel good about feeling sorry for themselves. Most (I'm guessing again) people who use illegal software wouldn't have purchased it in the first place but just continued without it. It's more likely a frustration thing, that developers and publishers can't do much about a bunch of pimple faced brats with attitude problems that steal their things and hides like the cowards they are, therefore using something like cd-drive killing protection schemes to give a false sense of at least doing something.
If all the money that went into licensing Safedisc/Laserlock/Securom and all the other garbage went into tracking and elimintating the distribution channels, much would be accomplished. You can't stop people from trying to break a protection mechanism, it's a challenge thing, there will always be somebody who tries and succeeds. You can however go after those who try to make a (fake) name for themselves by distributing it. Assumedly, they are more in it for the "glory by association with the cool cracker thing" than the challenge thing.