Sadly there is a lot of scum out there that will stoop to any level to get money. Nothing new. One time is was land rights, cattle rights, water rights, etc. These days it's copy-rights, patent-rights, and always some guys or gals willing to assume "rights" and then get some dirt bags to defend those..."rights".
Remember when SCO was gonna sue the pants off Linux users. ? Till the developers said, "take your code and shove it".