69 karma · joined June 21, 2015
There are a lot of opinions on how copyright should work, however little understanding of how it actually works.
There are possible tech solutions that could work with the current copyright system. The truth is both big tech and the rights collection societies like the status quo as they both profit off the actual creative works done by others. The actual battle is between who can get the biggest slice.
If you want a small/reasonable amount of compensation and failing that, you want them to cease using your code, I would just talk to them. Put together what your licensing terms are and then simple case of pay or stop using. This the path I would recommend, and as long as the fee is reasonable, I (as someone who has to deal with this sort of thing in my current role) would simply pay, as it the normal cost of doing business.
The reality is that this is likely the fault of a nieve developer, not the deliberate action of the organisation. Aggressively threatening to sue etc is typically overkill and the sort of behaviour that causes legal teams then to restrict developers and prevent them sharing their code etc.