As a Britanon with something of an addiction to wargames Bring and Buy sales, I was quite aware of the whole Warboot attempted copyright fiasco. Just figured it was too niche and dull to mention on here.
The Siege Studios guy strikes me as that particular type, that sees opportunity to make money in what's quite a communal environment. The only piranha in the pond. Wargaming isn't a big industry outside of GW basically becoming EA. I'm just a guy of no real note, and yet I am mutuals with various companies and artists and such. You don't get that in a lot of hobbies.
Combined with how sketchy and ill-thought a lot of commission painting is (I'm sure we've all had a friend who thinks they can try it) I'm not surprised.