It's not entirely clear to me that improvements to the license text couldn't help. For example, increasing its strength to an indemnification might have been e

It's not entirely clear to me that improvements to the license text couldn't help. For example, increasing its strength to an indemnification might have been effective here (at the very least it would put us in a good position to start demanding that he pay the cost of our defense right out of the gate). It's somewhat common for commercial click-wrap agreements to include indemnifications now, but it probably shouldn't be-- they're potentially unfair and over-powered which is why I haven't tried my hand at drafting language. But you're right that the license isn't the primary problem as they can't do something about an excessively dysfunctional legal system. The UK courts already have a pretty bad reputation internationally in other areas, such as in abusing them for defamation lawsuits resulting in US legislative action to block them (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act ).