Regarding your edit, that amount wasn’t the cumulated cost of whatever Limewire were distributing, that would be idiotic indeed; rather the RIAA tried to call for a ruling that somehow those guys were causing $150,000 in damages - per instance. Now the article unfortunately doesn’t state how they possibly tried to justify that number, and I can’t be bothered to research that myself. Another thing that would interest me is how the plaintiff expected them to pay with almost every dollar on Earth.
So while I don’t think this had anything to do with “lost sales”, I do agree with the possible fines and damage calculations not being fit for any sort of realistic purpose at all.