More then that. One of the main reasons to do GPLv3 ( while GPLv2 exists ) was that lawyers in different countries see the same words differently. Like the word “distribute”. So the GPLv2 was vulnerable to attacks like this. For GPLv3, instead of consulting only US lawyers. The FSF consulted lawyers from all around. For example “distribute” is not used in the text of GPLv3. They have the terms “convey” and “propagate” which are clearly defined in the text it self.
A lot of people want to be Free. A lot of people torrent movies, download songs from YouTube and install cracked Photoshops and Mayas. Which they downloaded illegally gratis. They have Windows with the “Activate Windows” message written in the corner. I have friends that do that. And they laugh at me saying that they got their software gratis too. And that Blender being gratis has no added value to them.
People don’t understand law. Because they think law represents common sense. It’s not. Some laws are ridiculous. But they still written in words. And the lawyers will use those words against you.
For me in Israel listening to mp3 in vlc before 2017 was legal. In the US the same activity would be illegal. Because US has the law that’s permitting software patents. And the mp* formats were under such patent.
Developing or using software that was under such patent without the permission of the patent holder is illegal. Of course the police will not enforce it. The patent holder might enforce it by suing you. Luckily the patent was issued in 1997 and by 2017 (20 years) the patent is no longer valid.
Copyright is a different beast. People confusing those 2 by lumping them together into a vague term “Intellectual Property”. But they have completely different rules. And people are not looking into the rules them selves. Because they hear “IP” and it’s assumed you will hear “property”. Property is one concept, copyright is another, patent is yet another, trade mark is also yet another.
I’m saying that even if you dodge one attack there is the other. By avoiding copyright problems. You don’t avoid patent problems. Copyright is more about the actual work. Patent is more about the idea. Just this distinction alone make them completely unrelated. But both extremely dangerous in our situation here.
We have to somehow educate users who grab everything gratis. To make them understand that for Free Software there is a lot of legal headache to go through.