That being said, it is a very happy outcome, $4K to food banks and the author seems happy. Plus I'm sure Kraft's design company can write off the charitable donation anyway.
In my mind, [a substantially larger settlement] would not have been just. It would have been a reverse form of theft, taking advantage of one person’s mistake for my personal gain. While it’s tempting to blame the “big corporation” for this kind of thing, ultimately these kinds of mistakes are made by people who are prone to the same kinds of errors that you and I make every day.
They didn't steal anything. They only infringed on the exclusive right granted under copyright law.
Actually stealing IP is near impossible to do.
[0] http://krazydad.com/blog/2014/07/13/hmm-this-maze-looks-fami... [1] http://krazydad.com/mazes/sfiles/KD_Mazes_IM_v1.pdf
The copyright office is clear that mechanically generated works are not copyrightable.
Read the original hn post about this if you want to see a ton of debate on this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8030439