This is a story of one little man who liked a band from Germany. This band was called Rammstein. 5 years ago I decided to collect all information, adore the band, to visit concerts and learn all lyrics. I created a website to share to positive things with all other fans. I made a lot of friends.
After some time I managed to do this website in 10 languages, which was a great success in my life. Me (Rammstein-Europe.com), Jeremy Williams (Herzeleid.com) and Gerald Blachfellner (Rammstein-Austria.com) became the 3 most important administrators of Rammstein fansites. We served 80 % of the fans, we provided them with information and made free advertising for the band. We never wanted anything but to talk about our favorite band. We became celebrities and without us the band wouldn’t be where it is.
Then one day I went to a vacation. It was pretty nice, but when I returned back home I had an e-mail in the inbox. Universal Music and Pilgrim Management noticed that one user uploaded some copyrighted photos on my forum. They wanted money from me, just because one asshole uploaded the crap to the forum. I was really shocked and wanted to kill myself when I saw the invoice.
For all the hard work I was in a position that no one wanted to be. But I have studied the copyright law and have some experience with it. I was prepared to solve everything as soon as possible. I wanted to be really friendly with Rammstein management. I took a loan and paid all the fees by myself and then asked all fans to contribute.
Now it is a question of the year: will we continue or terminate our activity? Affenknecht is the new name (this name was chosen after the domain name Rammstein-Europe was “given” to Rammstein management). I appreciate if you – dear fans – will still visit the website.
There will be some changes. Comments on the news page will be always moderated and appear after approval. How will the forum work is still to be determined. There must be some kind of regulation to prevent users from uploading copyrighted content without permission. How this will be solved is not known yet.
We do this for the band! We support them and will keep moving!
Upon receipt of further information I will inform you accordingly. Thank you all.
