I am sure this is a setback for the CEO who has stated he would have to get out of the business at some point. He can't cash out like he intended. He will have to continue whipping his extortion department to continue threatening people out of money.
Also, we had never heard of an Arius3D settlement demand letter before and still haven't heard of one. I am wondering if the Aruis3D was concerned about taking on Masterfile's reputation for extorting people.
In the press release, it mentions Masterfile's strong financials but the secret is out that the major stock photo companies use the extortion letter scheme to create new revenues to offset the fact that the stock photo business is becoming a commodity business and actually going down the tank.
Getting in to the stock photo business is like trying to fight your way into the newspaper business. Titanic, anyone?
It's possible that Arius3D was interested in Masterfile's library of photos but not willing to pay to an inflated value due to the artificial inflation of including Masterfile's extortion / collection revenues. Masterfile may count it as revenues but NOT from traditional stock sales. That might have been problematic for Arius3D who does not appear to run an extortion scheme as far as we know.
There are very few people who want to buy a business whose primary line of revenues and profits comes from threatening to sue people. It makes for a shitty business model not to mention an ongoing PR nightmare.
Everything I just stated is speculation on my part.