I read an article last year that suggested most people who watch porn don't mind downloading it illegally. The somewhat taboo and murky image it has almost encourages you to obtain it illegally, despite there being numerous ways to pay for it. This hasn't been helped with the masses of porn being peddled by criminal organisations - who wants to risk handing over their credit card details to some random site that may or may not be run my the russian mafia?
What article in question describes smells a lot like a shakedown, of a similar ilk to the ACS:Law shenanigans a few years ago.