Lawyers charge arms and legs; my impression of the article is that the author was not in a position where getting a lawyer was just a "just" undertaking.
We're in the digital age. Email should work. Customer support should escalate and send an internal email or communicate to the appropriate person and/or dept (legal) as well, instead of just saying 'i cant (or dont want to) help you, please redirect here -> X'. This just shows how disconnected and teams are at a company. Oh and don't get me started about crappy autoresponder emails like that.
"Stuff like this happens all the time" is not an excuse. Not when it comes to sexual harassment, and not when it comes to copyright infringement or about shoddy customer support.
Lawyering up is a service to the entire ecosystem, not just to yourself.
My argument is that the OP should have at least received a response from the company or have his/her concerns moved to the appropriate dept by the CS team, instead of being patronized by an autoresponder.
It's best that people only call you for the right things, but once they are already on the line your only real choices are to help them get to the right person or tell them to fuck off. To the extent the company cares either about service or their brand, they'll pick the former.
I shouldn't put words in the parent commenter's mouth, but it sounded to me like "Stuff like this happens all the time" was just acknowledging reality, not judging right or wrong. Also perhaps indicating (but if they weren't then I am now) that hiring a lawyer is not actually this drastic, horrible outrage to be avoided at all costs, but a rather routine measure advisable for anyone in business for themselves or anyone facing an obviously legal issue such as copyright infringement. Since this seems a pretty clear case, chances are good that he'd get his legal fees paid too, meaning the lawyer is free.
Imagine your github repository being copied, and the content being used in the next version of say the Google Pixel, with no attribution and no respect for your copyrights.
Unless you enjoy suing people and making enemies, it is not fun. Unless you have a lawyer on a retainer, it is not a quick buck.
Also, this is just when you "catch" the violators. How many times did I have my pictures used commercially without attribution? I don't know. It may be why I left this line of business.
When a publication boosted some of my images, I sent them an email. They apologized and sent me a check for, I think, $500.
My lawyer charges $350/hr. If I called him up asking him to send a demand letter for $500, he'd correctly tell me that a) it's worth me trying it first, and b) it might not be worth him doing it at all.
Often images have misrepresented copyright details on "open source" stock sites that can lead to this sort of thing.
Hopefully the two parties can agree on a credit placement to help clear it up
Translated into human-speak: "Netflix used the author's photo without his permission. Netflix might pay him in the future."
The classic talk "Fuck You, Pay Me" that shows up on HN every once in a while: https://vimeo.com/22053820