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Finnish Police Board Wants Justification For Wikipedia's Fundraising Campaign
linjaaho writes "Yesterday, the admin list of Finnish language Wikipedia received a request for comment from the National Police Board of Finland. The Police Board claims that the fundraising message appearing on the top of the Wikipedia pages is illegal fundraising and is punishable by criminal law. The Police Board asks how much money have they raised and ask for justification for the campaign. This is not the first time the Police Board has attacked fundraising; in 2012, a crowdfunded textbook Kickstarter project was delayed by a similar request for comment."
Well, the point is that you fill an application and get the permit to raise funds. All kinds of non-profit organizations get them all the time. If wikipedia had done that the Finnish police would be quite happy. The problem is that Wikimedia is registered in California and they obviously do not care about Finnish law and I have no idea of how the police think they can force a US organization to comply with the rules if all the servers and staff are outside Finland.
The issue with the kickstarted texkbook was different because it was not a non-profit organisation. In Finland you need to crowdsourcing very carefully so that it is clear that you are selling a product and not raising money. Jolla did it with their phone so it can be done, but just using kickstarter as it is is illegal, because it is too much like charity for funding a regular company.