Well, that's true, but the same is true of televisions. Most people who steal a TV weren't going to otherwise buy one. Nonetheless if someone stole 100 TVs, you'd sue them to recoup the sale price of 100 TVs, not the one they might actually purchase.
Granted the RIAA suits are ridiculous anyway, but either pirating is stealing or it isn't. If it's stealing, it doesn't matter what the markup was or how much they would have paid. If it's not stealing, then let's dismiss the whole case and move on.
Right, so there should be no restitution at all, only punitive damages. Court-determined fractional restitution is scary. Our legal system has better uses of time and money than trying to figure out how many of those 17,000 people would have purchased the album, especially since the answer is zero if you count other avenues of piracy.
Granted the RIAA suits are ridiculous anyway, but either pirating is stealing or it isn't. If it's stealing, it doesn't matter what the markup was or how much they would have paid. If it's not stealing, then let's dismiss the whole case and move on.