I'm gonna have to side with jpanhalt on this one. Yeah, I've heard of "no win no fee," but it's the same as hearing about the Tooth Fairy. The reality in my experience has been that even in instances where legal aid has informed, and paid for the court costs, of someone with a completely righteous claim, that the same person is largely only rewarded with an acknowledgement that they were in the right. If you compare what they "win" as a result of their involvement in court with what they could have accomplished instead of wasting their time and money in litigation, I think you'd realize that arguing in court is no money-maker. And that's presuming that you win - no matter how righteous you may be, the outcome of court proceedings are largely influenced by your ability to articulate your case, and the whims of the judge.
You're better off just being smarter than the criminals in the first place. That takes less energy than flexing your proverbial muscles, spouting off what you'll do to anyone who attempts to wrong you. The flaw with that is similar to the flaw of a parent saying, "Don't do that, or you'll be punished." As soon as the child realizes it's unlikely that the parent will be able to follow-through with the punishment, the door is open for re-offenders.
Civil courts are, perhaps ironically, mostly designed to protect larger society from two parties that are incapable (i.e. too stupid) to resolve their differences in a civilized manner themselves. I would expect, even though copyright infringement is considered a crime in many nations, that even those nations would in actuality consider copyright infringement a civil matter, especially on smaller scale occurences.