Not to be the bad guy or side with the "enemy" here but if he doesn't have the license then he can't produce new PF's without the risk of something like this happening. It's licensed art. If mirco does have said agreement then they are within right to make this request, although done in a very poor way. Mirco would have had to pay for that thus why they would want to protect their investment. Me personally I would have reached out to John to work out a deal so that the PF's could still be produced and Mirco got a cut of it for owning the license (if true).

With all of that said. John, I thought you were taking old PF's, sanding them, repairing and then apply new art. If that is the case then you are just restoring an original PF and that changes things. At least that is what my lawyer told me with my Batman effort that I was working on (which kind of has fallen through). It was a very different situation to produce new ones than it was to repair/restore old ones. I'd contact your attorney to see where things stand. If you are just restoring then you may be OK either way.