robin hood or troll?

Bridgeport's plethora of sampling lawsuits has earned the company the unpleasant title of the "sample troll" in the music world. Armed with its aging portfolio of copyrights, this sample troll is scouring the music kingdom searching for unnoticeable segments in the backgrounds of popular songs and filing lawsuits claiming excessive financial damages.

But perhaps Bridgeport's actions are simply misunderstood. Perhaps its diligent lawyers are simply taking a stand against all those indulgently wealthy rappers taking advantage of the lesser known artists from whom they are stealing beats?

Is Bridgeport "more Robin Hood than troll, stealing from lazy, rich rappers like Jay-Z to channel money back to deserving artists like George Clinton"?

Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu argues no - he writes that it "would make some sense if making rap music were easy, or if Clinton or other artists were in some way the beneficiary of the lawsuits. But neither is true. Bridgeport and other trolls do take from the rich. But they keep the money."

So maybe Bridgeport isn't much of a benevolent Robin Hood...but let's say that they were. That the millions of dollars in damages from the rulings against Dimension Films and Jay-Z did go to Clinton. Then would such rulings be less controversial? Would that make their actions more right? More justifiable?

What matters more - the future of copyright/fair use law interpretations or paying financial rewards to the rightful music creators?