I think the problem with this, like with most routes that involve a lawyer, is that this isn't about being enforceable or not, but whether you can actually pay in time and money to try to enforce it.
That's why typically only companies try to enforce licenses.
The author said that even writing the blog post was hard because he had not much time to spare.
Imagine what it would cost if you sue and demand a newspaper like The Daily Mail.
Ah yes; it's almost as if we live in some sort of serfdom where all the laws are set up to benefit only those who already have wealth, influence and power.
I haven't thought much about this but I wonder if a possible way around the problem is for multiple victims to pull resources and combine their cases against a single offender.
Someone would have to invest the time to create some structure to help the victims find each other but it should cost little to no money.
A lawyer might even find it lucrative to do this? It's like the advertisements I see asking if I've ever taken some drug or something if so I can join a class action law suit.
That is pretty much what a class action suit is, but there has to be some realistic expectation of money at the end (or a deep principle the lawyers care about) for anyone to take it on.
Finding each other is cheap, structuring such a case isn't.
Oh, that's interesting. What if included in the site, article, and as a comment surrounding the "poop. stolen." alert, were the licensing terms for those not granted explicit permission? Say, a $0.01 a view, or some such? Your compensation for their stealing your article might be quite handsome, likely enough at least to get a lawyer involved based on a shared percentage of recouped licensing fees. I imagine it would be fairly easy to prove, given all the locations the licensing information was available, including right next to the manual editing the employee had to do to get it to work on their site.
I bet you if you sourced it well, made it look formal, and referenced the relevant articles, visualizations, etc. they might pay it rather than fight you if the price was reasonable.
Otherwise, you can always send them to collections for non-payment and/or hire a lawyer.
Maybe, but there's also the cost of time, of actually finding that lawyer, convincing him of this, etc.
One of the things money seems to buy, which makes wealthy people/entities able to tackle problems that must of us realistically can't, is time.
I believe that in the end, the so-called rat-race is just a race to be free to have time, to do whatever you like to. Sure, some chains you will never be free of, but if you can shed enough chains off of you, you will have enough time to do other, more meaningful stuff, like defending your rights/intellectual property/privacy, etc.
In this case at least, it seems like the author finds it very hard to pursue this path, because in the end, what's in there for him? Maaaaaybe some money, after a long a emotionally tiring fight. On the other hand, you will lose time and money and potentially your health (since I don't see this route being stress-free).
In the end, like for most things, it ends up being a kind of personal-ROI thing. The return he sees is probably to low to be worth going after it, and the investment and risk too high.
And that's unfortunate, because in the end the abusive guys with money and time end up winning most battles :(
That's why typically only companies try to enforce licenses.
The author said that even writing the blog post was hard because he had not much time to spare.
Imagine what it would cost if you sue and demand a newspaper like The Daily Mail.