[pbhjpbhj]

>unless the plaintiff can demonstrate to the court direct harm //

The harm per capita is slight in financial terms I'd agree. But demonstrating the harm is simple - I did something with a PD work, this company acted to prevent my free exercise of using that PD work.

It's akin to blocking a public right of way (not sure about law concerning such things outside the UK sorry) - you block access on a path or road that should be free to access by the public, you're preventing a person from exercising their rights.

Possibly there is a libel issue too - the company [maliciously] claim you're copyright infringing, you show the work used is out of copyright and that the company would have [on the balance of probabilities] known that.

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¹ I gather that's the measure used for torts in the UK courts.