Publishing advice anyone?

Firstly, my apologies, this is off-topic but I know there are folk on the forum who are involved in the publishing industry and I would welcome their advice. The subject matter is aviation related so if the mods could humour me I’d be grateful!

I need to be non-specific here, so please excuse the vagueness.

So, picture the scene, some time ago a ‘friend’ was asked by a ‘fairly well-known publisher’ to produce some ‘graphical work’ for a forthcoming book on a ‘British aircraft subject’. Our hero spent about 4-5 months working on the project (and a not insignificant amount of his own money in research) before delivering the completed ‘work’ to the publisher. The book was due to be published about 4 months after that.

Now this fairly well-known publisher has a policy of not paying its contributors until x number of months after the book has been published. Not a policy that seems very fair to the hard-working authors, researchers and artists that make the fairly well-known publisher a success, but there we are.

The publisher then decided, without telling our hero, to delay the publication date by a significant period quoting the new date as “Spring 2012”. Spring 2012 subsequently comes and goes and still no sign of the book. It has now been 2 years since the ‘work’ was delivered and there is still no sign of the book and, due to the payment policy, no sign of the ‘work’ being paid for.

Our hero is, by now, so disgusted at being taken for a ride like this that he’d rather withdraw his ‘work’ than have the p*ss taken out of him anymore. The question is, are there any legal ramifications if he says to the fairly well-known publisher “enough is enough, if you’re not going to pay me for work I completed for you 2 years ago then I withdraw it so you can’t use it for your book”. The copyright for commissioned work remains with the creator/artist so is that course of action justifiable? Can the creator refuse to allow his work to be reproduced (as it’s his copyright) even by the people that asked for it in the first place?

I know it appears like cutting off ones nose to spite ones face, but it’s hypothetical at the moment and there is a principle involved here.

Comments welcome! 🙂