Well, we try our best to remain neutral and interfere as little as possible in the thousands of posts made to Pinside every day. We certainly don't view ourselves as "protectors of copyrights and patents" (for starters, we are not qualified to do so but we also have way too much other stuff to do to keep this site running smoothly).

So we always urge license holders to work things out with the "infringer" directly, preferably via PM. And this often works out fine and is often quicker and more effective than through us.

But sometimes it doesn't work and then we receive takedown notices, which we can not ignore. Because although Pinside does not have to follow American laws, we have similar laws in Europe. If you are not aware how a notice and takedown works, check out Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notice_and_take_down (the first paragraphs kind of says it all).

Besides all that, when someone is blatantly selling copied artwork on a large scale, apparently without compensating the artists and/or rights owners... Well, that also rubs us the wrong way morally.

After continuous claims of copyright infringement and pressure from IP holders, we had to act. RetroRefurbs have been warned several times about the complaints and even though they have since stopped posting their wares directly on Pinside, they were still marketing their company and webshop in many threads.

I'm still hopeful that this matter can be resolved and agreements can be reached between the IP holders and RetroRefurbs. If that happens, then we will naturally reconsider the account freeze.

Closing this thread (to avoid any further legal headaches). Sorry!