The BSA is an example of an organization that takes reports of companies pirating software and trying to work with them to get them to start using the software legally. It's legal to do this and is often cheaper for both sides as lawsuits are expensive.

Hypothetically, then it makes huge business incentive for these companies to work with hackers/crackers to embed malware in their crack for homing in on the pirates. Since, there wasn't any intrusion involved, I doubt whether it would be considered hacking legally? Even if it did, does the protections apply to cracks used for pirating? I bet there aren't any legal precedence for such situations in several countries where such organizations operate.