When the SFLC does GPL enforcement, their goal isn't to extract money from inevitable mistakes and oversights, but to bring the offender into compliance. Organizations who are trying to follow the rules and accidentally violate the letter of the law are given a chance to amend their practices; only when organizations intransigently resist following the rules are they targeted for lawsuits. This is enforcement: using the legal system to try to make the system work for everyone involved.
When Patrick McHardy [1] did "GPL enforcement", his goal wasn't to help bring people into enforcement, but to extract money from inevitable mistakes and oversights. Organizations trying to follow the spirit of the law but accidentally violating the letter of the law were lured into restrictive contracts and then punished for minor infractions. This is trolling: using the legal system to intimidate and extract money for minor infractions.
A proper "enforcement" interaction in this case, which was actually trying to make the system work well for everyone involved, would look like this:
Enforcer to website: "You seem to have image X; do you have a license?"
Website: "I got the image from the marketing department of Y; they said their license covered it."
Enforcer to Y: "It seems you gave image X to organization Z for their website; but your license only covers you to use the image on posters. If you want to use the image for partner websites, please upgrade to the version of the license which allows this, or pay this one-off license fee."
Y: "Oh yes, sorry about that; here you go."
Photographer is paid for their image, innocent people don't end up paying fines for simple mistakes; the system works for everyone involved.
When Patrick McHardy [1] did "GPL enforcement", his goal wasn't to help bring people into enforcement, but to extract money from inevitable mistakes and oversights. Organizations trying to follow the spirit of the law but accidentally violating the letter of the law were lured into restrictive contracts and then punished for minor infractions. This is trolling: using the legal system to intimidate and extract money for minor infractions.
A proper "enforcement" interaction in this case, which was actually trying to make the system work well for everyone involved, would look like this:
Enforcer to website: "You seem to have image X; do you have a license?"
Website: "I got the image from the marketing department of Y; they said their license covered it."
Enforcer to Y: "It seems you gave image X to organization Z for their website; but your license only covers you to use the image on posters. If you want to use the image for partner websites, please upgrade to the version of the license which allows this, or pay this one-off license fee."
Y: "Oh yes, sorry about that; here you go."
Photographer is paid for their image, innocent people don't end up paying fines for simple mistakes; the system works for everyone involved.
[1] https://opensource.com/article/17/8/patrick-mchardy-and-copy...