The dispute between lawyer and part-time concert photographer J Salmeron and Arch Enemy continues to unfold with the latest development finding clothing company Thunderball Clothing shuttering their doors in the wake of the backlash they received.

The dispute started when Thunderball Clothing reposted a photo of Arch Enemy frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz on Instagram that Salmeron shot during the band’s appearance at the ‘FortaRock Festival‘ this past summer. The clothing company had made the outfit that Alissa was wearing in the photo and allegedly reposted the photo with its watermarks and such intact.

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Salmeron for his part felt that the photo was being used commercially without license at that point and requested a €500 (five hundred Euro) fee, though eventually lessened it to a €100 donation to a cancer charity. The dispute made its way back to Arch Enemy, who saw to the photo being removed and eventually wound up blacklisting Salmeron from shooting at any future shows.

There’s a few more wrinkles to be found in there, but you can find Salmeron‘s original accusation and a statement in reply to it by Alissa White-Gluz at this location.

Following that, Marta Gabriel, founder of Thunderball Clothing issued an apology statement which leads us up to now. Gabriel has since announced that she is closing up shop following the backlash she’s featured for her part in the controversy. In a statement issued earlier today (December 30th) Gabriel stated:

“STATEMENT 30/12/2018 – UPDATE / THE END OF THUNDERBALL CLOTHING

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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 in my previous post).

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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.

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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.

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Marta Gabriel, Thunderball Clothing“

Meanwhile, former Arch Enemy singer Angela Gossow, who manages the band these days, issued a new statement on the matter, calling the ordeal a ‘bully rally’:

“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 of the 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 PS – here is Marta’s statement: 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 in my previous post).

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. Marta Gabriel, Thunderball Clothing“

Salmeron himself and Metal Blast whom he shoots for have also responded to the news of Thunderball Clothing closing their doors, stating: