I'll agree that the NEL was a PR boon for this case, it's turned most of the discourse on this topic into people saying the IA deserved it for something unrelated to the case.
That's a different claim than "book publishers would have tolerated CDL without it."
Sure, fair enough, they were probably just waiting for the right time to pounce. The NEL was as good a time as any, but it was probably a matter of "when", not "if".
That's a different claim than "book publishers would have tolerated CDL without it."