4. In addition to wanting to shame FG, Mr. Arrington wants to send the world a message saying, in effect, that anyone who tries to pull this sort of stunt on him will pay the due penalty for what he does, even if it costs him a large sum to exact the punishment.
I have sometimes wondered why companies don't do this more often. It seems that a consistent and well-publicized "we don't negotiate with terrorists" stance could be useful to discourage for example patent trolls.
The best (and most entertaining) example I can think of this is Monster Cables threatening to sue a competitor on extremely flimsy grounds, without realising the owner was previously a high powered lawyer.
Individual cost-benefit analysis. Gaining a reputation as someone with a temper, creating chilling effects in your business associations. And potentially killing the company over a lawsuit. A quarter million isn't spare change to a medium sized company like techcrunch and lawsuits loooove to inflate. As my business law prof said, start with the end in mind, and if they don't have deep pockets, there isn't much benefit to suing. Plus with the iPad and the inevitable torrent me-toos from everybody else, the crunchpad wasn't going to get much.
I have sometimes wondered why companies don't do this more often. It seems that a consistent and well-publicized "we don't negotiate with terrorists" stance could be useful to discourage for example patent trolls.