There are a few problems. Not even developers of Open Source software take it seriously, as Software Conservancy is viewed as "extremist" when they file law suits attempting to enforce GPL, with Linux Foundation explicitly saying they were NEVER sue anyone.
so if the code owners do not care why should the companies infringing on the license.
Then there is big problems with calling it theft, as legally is it not. Infringement is not theft and in most jurisdictions (if not all) in the US you are barred from calling it theft in court.
This will end when authors of a GPL licensed project with few authors (to make it easy to get everyone on board) decide they'd like some money now please, get a decent law firm to take the case on contingency and hit some company hard.
Praat would actually be a good candidate with just 2 people contributing majority of the code.
Record labels argued in court that each song shared in p2p networks that was downloaded at least once entitled them to statutory 150k USD in damages. Using that same logic Praat authors could demand 150k per release of voice.ai software at the very least.
In fact I would really like them to do that - it would fund further development of Praat at least and set a precedent showing that GPL != public domain, which seems to be the perception of many companies including large corporations, simply because nobody will care to enforce it.
Software Freedom Conservancy does enforce copyleft licenses, including suing violators. Their current lawsuit against Vizio is interesting because they aren't suing as copyright holders, but as recipients of GPL binaries from Vizio, they say that they are a third-party beneficiary of the GPL and thus they ask the court to force Vizio to release the relevant source code. Thus they create the possibility for any user of GPL binaries to sue for source code release.
Sure, try to infringe on some dual license software where one kf the licenses is GPL, these have few authors for obvious reasons. I bet the authors of Qt would sue, with an easy case for damages.
Conservancy recommends that "Community-oriented enforcement must never prioritize financial gain" because "it can in some cases work against the purpose of copyleft". They do suggest it is reasonable to ask for costs for bringing the company into compliance (lawyers fees, staff time etc) though.
Yeah, I never understood this. Why go through all the hassle of arguing over license text on a mailing list for months on end when no one is going to actually use it in court?
Well the statement about never sueing anyone "just happened" to come about at the time that Linux Foundation was also transitioning itself from being User Supported to be Large Corporate Donor Supported "Foundation of Foundations" where by the largest companies in Tech became their support base and they ended all user memberships completely.
They are business association much like BSA, and less of an Open Source Steward these days and it is highly concerning the number of open source projects they hovering up under their "protection"
so if the code owners do not care why should the companies infringing on the license.
Then there is big problems with calling it theft, as legally is it not. Infringement is not theft and in most jurisdictions (if not all) in the US you are barred from calling it theft in court.