Yeah. That's what's going to happen. Uh-huh.

Let's modify the scheme just a tiny little bit:

"We're going to sue the first 1000 people we see violating our copyrights starting at 8:00, and we're not going to count people who we find during discovery accepted money from a 'defense fund'".

I'm pretty sure that leaves 99.999% of the original target population to sue.

I forgot if that case ever resolved itself fully, but, isn't $3000 like less than 1% of what she wound up liable for?

Yes, but that wasn't the point, defense funds exist, they're being used, and it won't take much to institutionalize them where people will simply set them up pre-emptively.

Such indemnification schemes can be made illegal by the authorities though.

It's a reverse lottery, if you play and you end up losing then the pot covers your losses.

What I said was, even if defense funds actually happened --- and the only example you have is a large organization defraying a tiny fraction of the legal costs for a hugely publicized case --- they wouldn't interfere with this recovery strategy.

Then the plaintiff can follow the money trail and fry them all.

Is contributing money to a defense fund really evidence of conspiracy? That seems legally questionable.