Do spam and piracy problems have a common solution?

A statistic offered during recent conference session stimulated a (then) spontaneous and somewhat provocative stream of thought. Using a very, very large sampling of spam, the presenter and his colleagues had determined that over 70% of spam targeted consumers of "life-style" drugs (non-scheduled prescription medications such as male performance enhancing drugs). This is such a staggering proportion of overall volume of spam that I immediately tried to think of another market where similarly astonishing statistics existed, to see whether there were similarities in demand-supply that made criminal activity attractive. The answer was obvious: digital copyrights abuse. The RIAA and MPAA...