Finnish Bureaucracy Takes Issue With Crowdfunded Textbook 149
linjaaho writes "Senja Larsen, who runs popular Facebook study group Senja teaches you Swedish, collected $14,161 via Kickstarter's crowd funding service. The project caught much media attention in Finland (TV and all major newspapers), since it is the first crowdfunded book project in this country, and among the first Finnish crowdfunded projects. (Previous ones include the movie Iron Sky, the role-playing game Myrskyn Sankarit, and the Wishbone headphone wire manager).
Now, after successfully collecting the funds for the book (and after the book has been edited and printed), the National Police Board of Finland has asked Senja to submit a statement [PDF; Finnish] concerning using crowdfunding to finance a project [PDF; Finnish] and the terminology used. It is possible that all the funding collected must be returned. The main problem is that direct translations of terminology at Kickstarter, such as 'bounty' and 'support,' are interpreted to mean collecting money without giving anything back, and this kind of operation requires a permit which can be only given to associations, not to private persons, and it takes long to apply for such permit."
Re:.gov gone wild (Score:4, Interesting)
The person is operating a business - admittedly, on non-standard terms - but she is running a business. That does include a requirement to understand and comply with the basic laws of the land. And she has done it in a way which runs afoul of some laws that are there for good reasons but which are not impossible to get around.
It's bureaucracy doing exactly what it is supposed to do: Ensuring a functional market by regulating it competently.