Right, but that's how a lawsuit works. You take the number it says in the book, multiply it by the number of allegations, and you get a number. You have to write this number down in your filing, then Ars Technica uses it for clickbait.

Murder 18 people and you can go to jail for 720 years. Doesn't mean squat. It's the 18 murders not the 720 years.

Likewise the $700 million number isn't important. What's important is the 400,000 copyright violations with no strategy, when even Lessig says you're gonna get sued and lose.

That's not really a substantive analysis of the issue, which I agree with the OP that these articles never really address fully.