You have to understand: Spam is about economics. It's not about morals or freedoms or anything else. It's purely about money.
If the amount it costs a spammer to spam is strictly less than his earnings from spam + profit, then he'll continue spamming. Every time Balsam wins a judgment, it goes in the cost column, thereby eating into the spammers' profits. Enough such judgments, and their profits evaporate, prompting a search for a new means of livelihood.
While I may or may not agree with his methods, his actions are taking money out of the pockets of spammers; which, given their model, can only be a good thing.
If more people did what he's doing, we would definitely see much lesser spam.
The winning quote from this article is:
"His courtroom foes contend that Balsam is one of many sole practitioners unfairly exploiting anti-spam sentiments and laws. They accuse him of filing lawsuits against out-of-state companies that would rather pay a small settlement than expend the resources to fight the legal claims."
Finally, a consumer is using the same tactics that big companies with big budgets use to get startups and individuals to give up their claims. This obviously only works because Balsam is a lawyer and doesn't need to pay his legal fees. But, I am happy to see someone fighting back!
I would think having a profit incentive means choosing the easy, low-hanging fruit rather than the hard cases that would take a lot of time and reduce the amount of potential profit.
If the amount it costs a spammer to spam is strictly less than his earnings from spam + profit, then he'll continue spamming. Every time Balsam wins a judgment, it goes in the cost column, thereby eating into the spammers' profits. Enough such judgments, and their profits evaporate, prompting a search for a new means of livelihood.
While I may or may not agree with his methods, his actions are taking money out of the pockets of spammers; which, given their model, can only be a good thing.
If more people did what he's doing, we would definitely see much lesser spam.