Interesting topic and article. I agree with the author, that it's useful to read this information and keep it in the back of your head in case you ever need it, before you actually find yourself in a stressful situation like this.

But one thing I don't understand every time there's a C&D story is why leave a paper trail to send the C&D to in the first place if doing something in a gray area? If I was creating some piece of software that is designed to give the middle finger to the man or facebook or whoever and/or benefit the public, I would just release the source anonymously on some random forum and it can't be stopped. Why create an official github repo with your real email and everything just to take credit?

To clarify, I mean cases like youtube vanced or the recent valve/nintendo portal mod issue, where its obvious some company might not like it, but I don't see why the projects couldn't have continued anyway if the authors didn't expose themselves to litigation. Or am I being naive about this?