> It's a civil suit, so you don't have to have broken the law.
Yes, you do.
> Breaking a contract or ToS is enough.
Breaking a legally binding commitment in a contract is breaking the law which makes it binding, and breaking a contract otherwise isn't sufficient for legal recovery; breaking a ToS is only sufficient for success in a civil suit if and to the extent some law makes it so.
No, this is not at all how civil law works. The main difference between a criminal offense and a civil offense is that a criminal offense will be pursued by the government, whereas pursuing a civil offense is the burden of the 'victim'. And civil cases tend to involve relatively small sums of money where the defendant will often just have to pay off the suffered loss - jail time is not a possibility, whereas criminal cases often involve punishment which can include jail time.
And most importantly, civil law is still a series of well defined laws. You can't pursue a civil case on a whim, there needs to have been some law that was broken. As somebody else also mentioned breaking a contract or a ToS would only be a civil violation if breaking the contract or ToS specifically violated some civil law. There is no civil law that makes breaking a contract or ToS inherently unlawful.
> And most importantly, civil law is still a series of well defined laws. You can't pursue a civil case on a whim, there needs to have been some law that was broken.
Can't you sue civilly for breach of contract? I don't think many people would consider breaking a contract to be breaking the law, even though there are laws governing contracts.
Only if it broke a relevant law. And each state's laws contract law tend to vary and are generally very obtuse. Here [1] for instance is California's state laws on contract. And even then you generally need to show damages, or a failure to deliver on a contractual obligation that resulted in less than promised.
So, for a term of a contract to have force, is it necessary to have some sort of penalty in the contract for breach-of-contract, involving e.g. some required payment, so that you can then sue for failure to pay the penalty? (Which I would assume is mostly equivalent to e.g. failure to pay for goods transferred or services rendered.)
No. Contracts typically do not have penalties. Civil cases are about lost value. The typical example is we agree for me to install copper piping in your house. Instead I install lead piping. Lead pipes cost $40, while copper pipes cost $60. I'd be liable for the $20 of lost value. Interestingly enough you generally could not even recoup the cost to remove and reinstall new piping. It's precisely about provable and direct lost value.
Yes, you do.
> Breaking a contract or ToS is enough.
Breaking a legally binding commitment in a contract is breaking the law which makes it binding, and breaking a contract otherwise isn't sufficient for legal recovery; breaking a ToS is only sufficient for success in a civil suit if and to the extent some law makes it so.