Every company I mentioned has broken laws, paid fines, and subsequently had laws changed in their favor.

I'm not saying it always works, but it works enough of the time that these companies accept it as a cost of doing business and have won. With that said, as pointed out in a different reply, copyright isn't one of the categories in which these companies are winning, so perhaps a questionable comparison by me in the original comment.

I agree this was a poor decision on IA's part, because they just don't have the horsepower to operate this way (not that I endorse this kind of behavior by businesses in the first place).

> These companies have the resources to shape the legal landscape, but not by breaking laws and getting prosecuted for it. That would show very poor decision-making.

Perhaps it's poor decision-making, but that's exactly what's been going on for years now. I suspect this is part of the reason numerous governments have been increasingly anti-tech in recent years.