I don't want to kill your sunday, but today in my mailbox at 9.48 AM:

How ridiculous. Such a shame.

It reminds me of a saying that was told to me by my favorite nephew, Mark, a 70 something long-time lawyer. It goes like this: "What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?" Answer: "A good start!"

That is unbelievable and a very sad outcome here, Ralf. It is very aggravating to me that (so-called) "lawyers" can wield such an unfortunate and negatively exaggerated influence in such cases.

With attorney and court costs being what they are in France, I am surprised the litigant intends to continue.  His lawyer should have done a financial review of the 'offenders' before proceeding with the case, at least to determine whether or not there would be any entity (or person) who could ultimately pay any amount, if they were successful.  I don't know of any lawyer who would advise his client to proceed in a case without first determining if there would be a payee at the end of the road.  Unless, of course, his client had very deep pockets and was a moron.

When I went after a man for a substantial debt my attorney told me that even if I were to win I would be the fourteenth litigant waiting in line to be paid.  Others had successfully sued the man, but no one had ever received a dime.  He did his homework and I walked away, as it doesn't make sense to throw good money after bad.

A very sad loss. MAR has been an outstanding contributor to our hobby. Such a shame to see it go for such a stupid cause. Litigation is often, and certainly in this care, a curse.

Thank you MAR and all the contributors over the years for your efforts, dedication and shared talent. You will be much missed.

There must surely be more to this story because this really doesn't make sense - many things don't add up.      At any rate, seeing MAR disappear is loss for the hobby.... so sad.

@chris   I tend to agree with you.  Lawsuits are expensive and to sue for infringement of copyright doesn't make any sense, unless the infringement is intentional and the defendant made no attempt to remove the article in contention from public view.  There is the right of 'fair use' that can be brought in as a defense argument, if there was no intent to gain financial benefit from the infringement.

A painting I commissioned in 2005, and on display on the artist's website as an example of his work, was subsequently employed by a religious organization in California as a marketing tool.  When I learned of this I contacted my attorney in D.C. and he sent them a letter requesting they stop their unauthorized use of the painting and after a very brief back and forth they complied.  I didn't sue for damages, or make any other noise about the issue.  I just wanted them to stop using a very personal painting for their financial benefit.

There are a lot of money grabbers out there. We can't blame just the lawyers. The copyright owner clearly believes there is money in there somewhere. Or maybe he's trying to make a point. Either way, it's a shame he has to take it out on someone who complied so quickly. 

@jkuvakas   I am curious to know what the litigant's motive might be, for his action seems counterintuitive.  He is spending money with absolutely no way of recouping his expenditure.

As an aside, it is a shame they closed up shop, when any competent attorney could have nipped this in the bud for them, for a very modest fee.

@gdh, some owners of copyrighted material are rabid about protecting it. They see every unauthorized use as a threat to their content being made public for other purposes. They usually have awyers on retainer and will quickly pounce on anyone and everyone who tries to use it. However, it is unusual for an owner to jump on a little guy like MARonline if they comply quickly.

Posted by: @jkuvakas

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... it is unusual for an owner to jump on a little guy like MARonline if they comply quickly.

In my experience, it is unusual.

Many years ago, one of my younger nieces was playing on her high school softball team and a brief 3 or 4 second snippet of a favorite song would be played as the young gal came up to bat as "walk up music". It was simply a tradition of the team.

My niece had hit a grand-slam home run in the game and faintly in the background a few seconds of a song could be heard in the background of the game video when it was on the team site at YouTube.

A group of lawyers from an organization known as UMG (Universal Music Group) quickly threatened to sue for a large amount for "copyright" infringement and the short video was quickly taken down.

I wrote UMP a scathing message indicating exactly how I felt about their actions and exactly where they should all quickly go from that pathetic "organization". I may be a nobody, but I do not ever forget .........

@jkuvakas Yes. If there had been any genuine suspicion that MAR Online was a commercial outfit using the copyright image for profit, you could see the point. But when the image was innocently assumed to be in the public domain, and removed as soon as MAR was made aware of their mistake, one would have hoped that any reasonable copyright owner would not have pursued the matter.

Apologies, by the way, for "breaking the news" this morning without spotting the earlier posts on the subject!

@michaeldetorrice   A few seconds falls under 'Fair Use,' for most publicly-disseminated work, as long as there was no misuse of the copyrighted material for financial benefit.  One thing many lawyers seem to forget is how many people will hear a snippet and end up buying the album, which I have done more times than I can count.