Patrick McHardy and copyright profiteering (Opensource.com)

> Surely the underlying point remains that if they complied with the licence in the first place, neither would happen.

IMHO, the goal of people releasing GPL software is to get people to contribute code (with the license being "merely" a means toward that end). Going straight to lawsuits without giving GPL violators the chance to correct their mistakes and start contributing back (which seems to be McHardy's M.O.) misses the forest for the trees.