I might be the only one in this entire thread to say it, but reading the entire story and emails carefully actually allows me to see both sides here.

Alissa says no commercial use was intended

There are not two sides, there are three. Photographer took the photo, had no problem with fans using it, or with the band using it. He saw a third party sponsor of the band using it for advertising purposes, so he sent an email saying he normally charges 500+ euro for that but if they gave 100 euro to charity he'd be ok with the company using it. Company is claiming ignorance and a lack of intention to use the image for advertising (perhaps lying, but perhaps just naive) but forwarded the email to the band supposedly without understanding it. The band jumps all over the photographer for "threatening" the sponsor, ban him from events. Sponsor takes down the photo and apologizes. I see no beef between the photographer and the sponsor, just the band dogpiling the guy for wanting to get paid for his work (or at least not have it used freely for commercial purposes). The band is very obviously the only party in the wrong here and they're looking like idiots by continuing this fight. At this point they should just shut up and throw some money at the charity and try to save as much face as they can, but I somehow doubt that's what's going to happen.

There are not two sides, there are three. Photographer took the photo, had no problem with fans using it, or with the band using it. He saw a third party sponsor of the band using it for advertising purposes, so he sent an email saying he normally charges 500+ euro for that but if they gave 100 euro to charity he'd be ok with the company using it. Company is claiming ignorance and a lack of intention to use the image for advertising (perhaps lying, but perhaps just naive) but forwarded the email to the band supposedly without understanding it. The band jumps all over the photographer for "threatening" the sponsor, ban him from events. Sponsor takes down the photo and apologizes. I see no beef between the photographer and the sponsor, just the band dogpiling the guy for wanting to get paid for his work (or at least not have it used freely for commercial purposes). The band is very obviously the only party in the wrong here and they're looking like idiots by continuing this fight. At this point they should just shut up and throw some money at the charity and try to save as much face as they can, but I somehow doubt that's what's going to happen.

Temple of Blood is a disingenuous turd in like 90% of the conversations he participates in. Best to just throw him on the ignore list and carry on with life.

So after the second insult may I ask you politely to explain how I am being disingenuous in this discussion?

Because you come in a thread to say that the subject of the thread is shit and shouldn't be discussed. You contribute nothing to the thread and show disdain and contempt for people who are interested in the subject at hand. Is that as fair answer?

Because you come in a thread to say that the subject of the thread is shit and shouldn't be discussed. You contribute nothing to the thread and show disdain and contempt for people who are interested in the subject at hand. Is that as fair answer?

At the time of this writing, the reddit thread has 3688 comments. I rest my case.

So Amott is now in the position of having to fire his girlfriend as band manager.

Intention/ignorance only excuses people named Hillary Clinton. The businesspersons who make-up Arch Enemy, as many others have said, should really really have known better.

STATEMENT 30/12/2018 - UPDATE / THE END OF THUNDERBALL CLOTHING

As many of you seems to follow this story, here's an update, and a final statement (you can see my previous statement and an apology from December 28 below).

The photographer, J. Salmeron, accepted my apology for reposting the photo he took, without having his permission, and as this was his request, I made a donation to the charity organization of his choice (the Dutch Cancer Society). I believe we can say this ends the dispute between us.

However, as I'm not able to handle the amount of hate and threats that I received and keep on receiving, I decided to do what I think is best in this situation. To end the being known as Thunderball Clothing (it's hard to use a word "company" here, as since day one it was just one person - me). I apologise for not being strong enough, and for not being next Internet hero that keep on saying "haters gonna hate". Within last 2 days I received literally hundreds of comments and messages that I'm a whore, a nazi, a communist, a worthless cunt, and that I either should quickly die, or that I should kill myself. There is no anger in me, and I apologise everyone that felt hurt or upset by this situation. Anyway, there is no Thunderball Clothing anymore. You won.

THUNDERBALL CLOTHING - STATEMENT / APOLOGY 28/12/2018

I would like to publicly apologise Mr J. Salmeron for reposting one of the photos he took, on my Instagram page, without having his permission. When few months ago I was reposting his photo from the Instagram page of the Arch Enemy singer Alissa White-Gluz, I was simply proud that such a great artist is wearing a clothing piece that I made, and wanted to share these news with my followers. As I did the repost with an app that included all original credits and watermarks, I thought that it's OK. I meant no harm, and it wasn't my intention to promote any product, however, I do agree that it might looked like that, and I understand that the author of the photography could feel upset about it. And I am sorry about it.

After I received an email message from J. Salmeron, who introduced himself as a lawyer and author of the photography, I interpreted it as another spam or scam (well, all of us receive this kind of emails all the time). I saw the amount of 500 Euro and the name of Alissa White-Gluz, from whom I reposted mentioned photo, so without going deeper into that message, I did what I thought was most logic - I contacted her, forwarded the original message that I got, and asked her what to do. I was instructed to take down the photo (what I immediatelly did), and was informed that someone else will take care of it. That again seemed logic, as I was aware that I'm not at the position of taking any actions on behalf of Arch Enemy, nor their members. I had no other contact with J. Salmeron, I haven't heard from him since then, and to be honest, for the last 6 months I had no idea that something is wrong, especially as the photo was taken down.

That being said, I would like to apologise J. Salmeron once again. Not only I'm willing to discuss with him how to compenaste him and fix the situation, but also how to make sure similar situation won't happen ever again. After all, we're all playing in the same team, and we all have one thing in common. We love music.

Marta Gabriel, Thunderball Clothing

CC Metal Blast

Dear whoever is interested in the subject,

I am reacting to the bully rally this photographer has set lose with his well crafted (he took 6 months to get it done and released), well timed mash up of different subjects at hand.

The details often get lost in the emotion of the narrative - and the narrative is often controlled by who presents the story first. Mr photographer threw a bunch of different things into one pot and highly emotionalized it. Lets differentiate:

1)

Copyright issue. Arch Enemy did not post any of his pictures, no breach of copyright there.
Alissa only re-tagged his image and got written permission of said photographer and actually got asked to re-post, after she fearfully removed the said photo. She refrained from doing so.
Conclusion: Zero involvement oft he band or Alissa in any of the addressed matters. Leave Arch Enemy and Alissa out of it.

2)

Thunderball clothing / Marta: The lady re-posted the picture and said ‘thank you for wearing my custom made outfit’ along with it. Copyright breach, as this can be interpreted as commercial use. Not intentionally, because she wasn’t aware of that fine line - a lot of people on the internet are not actually. Anything you re-post is a breach of copyright actually. She removed as well immediately. She did not react to the donation request because she was not sure if its scam. Donating to a cancer research fund is not going to buy her the rights to use the photo commercially. Only a paid invoice to said photographer would do. So why didn’t he just invoice the 500 EUR and went ahead and donated it to said charity? That would have been much more transparent in every aspect.

The internet hate campaign has destroyed Marta’s business – all existing customers have cancelled their orders and/or returned their orders. She has received numerous death threads, accusations of being a Nazi and worse. She has closed her shop she built up for 8 years over this. Is mistake really that severe to justify this? NO. Is it justified to destroy an artist over this? NO.

3)

Angela Gossow, management:

This is an unfortunate situation and a private business conversation that was never meant for public consumption (unethical and contrary to the code of conduct for European lawyers) was being abused for this campaign. I was doing my position in my efforts to aggressively represent and protect my client and her business partner. I’m sorry that this has been made public and the issues are now misconstrued. I am personally shocked by the fact a business dispute turned into such a destructive wave of hate.

The claim I had him blacklisted with all agents, festivals etc is false! I did inform my circle of people I do not want him in the Arch Enemy photo pit again. I did not ask any promoters, festivals, magazines or whoever to ban him. Mr. photographer, give me one person who has removed you from their payroll because of me. Nobody? Thank you.

Why I changed some words in my previous posts – I received a legal letter from said Mr. photographer asking me to, otherwise he would pursue me legally for my wordings. The same happened to Alissa and Jeremy Saffer, who took his entire post down. So those going out on the fence defending us are being silenced. Freedom of speech? No, I don’t think so. I am sure I will have to edit some of this post as well because I expect to receive a legal letter from him again within the next 24 hours. Just saying.

Oh, and I took away the word sheep because those people who damaged Marta beyond repair, who are threatening Alissa and me in very serious ways are not sheep – they are much worse. They are bullies.

We wish to move on from this and wish Mr Photographer the best with the career.

You are welcome to discuss on my facebook page – no comments disabled. I will not tolerate any threats concerning my person, my family and my friends. These will be pursued.

Thank you for your time to read this.

Angela Gossow

The photographer was in the right but he sounds like a bit of a dick tbh. This is one of those stories with no protagonist but a pretty solid antagonist.

Interesting saga, but I'm a bit perplexed at Metal-Blast pointing out that Gossow wears an Anarchy-Equality patch. Are they some sort of "SJWs are the real Nazis" rag?

Legally the lawyer(...:-p)/photographer is correct but I still think that if someone is taking a picture of me then I should be able to use it as well. After all it's the person in the picture that gives it value. It's just good manners really. Didn't read all the arguing between them that followed. I'm sure they'll get over it once they get diagnosed with cancer or when smth a bit more real happens in their lives.

Within last 2 days I received literally hundreds of comments and messages that I'm a whore, a nazi, a communist, a worthless cunt, and that I either should quickly die, or that I should kill myself.

I remember a 'reverse' situation about 10-15 years ago involving the band Twisted Sister suing a tiny hair cutting business called Twizted Sisterz' or something like that.

The band got mauled in the press saying they were bullies and that there was zero confusion in the market place and that they aren't harming anyone, blah blah blah...

If I recall correctly, JJ French in an interview basically agreed with the anger that was spewed at the band but explained that they needed to protect their trademark/copyright. If they didn't protect it in this instance, then what if some large multi million dollar company wanted to use some version of the wording 'Twisted Sister' it would hurt the bands ability to protect their TM in the court of law going forth....Can't really pick or choose how I took him explaining it....You gotta protect your work against those that might do your 'brand' harm in addition to those who may be using it totally innocently...

I see the similarity here.. Photographer was 100% in the right and generous to change his terms to make everyone look better. ....The band were using their higher standing in the music realm to bully him and it has backfired.... poor them.

this guy came at them as a lawyer. If you’re in the music business, you hate lawyers unless they’re working for you.