Let me set this up with the fact that I am not innocent of warez piracy (I've done it in the past), but I can say that I don't use any illegal software anymore.
But do you think it cost any of the major factories 400 to 500 dollars i think not.
I think you could compare this to the music industry: everybody that buys CD-Rs knows it doesn't cost $17 to make a CD. However, once you add in the profit for the band, recording studio fees, packaging, shipping, etc...it can end up costing a lot of money.
Same with the software industry, I'd assume: it adds up after you pay the coders, the developers, publishers, debuggers, etc....

On a different subject, if you're a student, you can get "educational" full versions of most Adobe software for about half the price, go to your college bookstore to investigate.

It's unfortunate that piracy exists, but software companies have to raise prices to account for it.