Huh, TIL.
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.
Cookies required for the website to work (like that one) are totally fine and, in fact, they don’t even have to ask you about them - if they’re not used for tracking. So no, asking each time is definitely avoidable.