An official statement of the Administration
On January, 10th, 2010, on the web-site http://www.running-wild.net Mr. Jens Pohl has made a statement, which discredits honor and dignity of Russian-speaking fans of Running Wild:

10.01.2010, Jens Pohl wrote:



The Administration of Russian Fan-site RW expresses an outrage and extreme indignation of accusation of criminal activity as well as of further applied sanctions against all Russian-speaking users of web-site http://www.running-wild.net, such as: banning or deleting of accounts from the database by Mr. J. Pohl.

We consider the tone of this statement a direct insult of all Russian-speaking fans of Running Wild, accusation of Russian Internet site and all its users of criminal activity – slander, which means dissemination of knowingly false fabrications, that discredit the image and reputation of our web-site and all its users as well. Besides, we consider the action of Mr. J. Pohl discrimination between nationalities. Such actions are liable to administrative or criminal proceedings according to German Law.

Administration of web-site http://www.running-wild.ru officially declares that Russian Fan-site RW doesn’t store or distribute any copyrighted media products and doesn’t advertise any pirate copies. Links to open File hosting services, that are placed on the web-site are just given to index files in Internet, which doesn’t infringe copyright.

Administration of web-site pursued one’s investigation of the incident Mr. J. Pohl laid out in his statement. Further to investigation we officially declare that our web-site has nothing to do with pirate distributing of tribute “ReUnation” and condemn it in every possible way. However, we acknowledge the fact that one of our constant user placed a hidden link to one of open File hosting services, contained the above mentioned composition in Mp3. In spite of this doesn’t contradict the Law, the link was immediately deleted after the incident.

Administration of web-site regards that now the incident should be over. We insist on Mr. J. Pohl apologizing for scurrility and insult of all Russian-speaking fans of Running Wild, who are registered users of this forum as well as forum http://www.running-wild.net. We also insist on complete restoration of accounts and rights of Russian-speaking fans of Running Wild on the above mentioned site.
This statement will be publicly available until the complete settlement of the situation. Having no apology or in case of further incorrect statements from Mr. J. Pohl to our web-site or its users we will have to eliminate a conflict with a help of Law.


However, we hope for Mr. J. Pohl understanding the impermissibility of such actions and soonest settlement of the conflict as well as further constructive cooperation of our web-sites (projects, resources).

Best regards,
Administration of Russian Fan-site Running Wild

A russian fan website threatening a german band they claim to love with legal action after someone got pissed off at links to illegal downloads? Please, dudes...

Even if this doesn't have anything to do with the MA, I feel I must comment on this a bit: use your common sense, people, before making any legal threats. The difficulty of pursuing such things between nations with different legal systems, and especially in cases involving just a few short sentences that could perhaps under very specific circumstances be considered slander, is a threat I've seen often, but I've never seen any news of actual legal action, let alone trials. These are hollow threats, in other words.

Besides, if you indeed had an illegal download link on the website, intentional or not, or with the administration's permit or not, is not what a good fan website should have, unless you have the band's permission for such a thing; I have a feeling your website will not get many such permissions after this letter of yours. Not to mention the fact that the owners of the official website are fully within their rights when they ban accounts they do not like, with a reason or without a reason. Nice fanboy action here, the politbureau gives a standing ovation.

I'd drop the tone and negotiate behind the scenes at this point, but it seems that such a thing never crossed your mind, and I have a feeling it would not suit your mentality. If someone has the grounds for legal action, it's Running Wild, so don't bite a bigger piece than you can swallow.

Just saying.

Why are we supposed to care?

We the visitors of the Russian RW forum decided to appeal to to herr Pohl personally with this document, for him to respond to the groundless insults and apologize in public. Due to the inability to post this message neither on the official website or forum (moderators keep deleting it and the accounts of russian users, twisting the facts and using only such quotes of users which favour their (moderators') position), we the representatives of the russian RW forum decided to post this appeal here to restore the justice.

With respect ...

P.S. This album in mp3 format was available for a free download ( http://www.google.com/search?client=ope ... nation+mp3 ) for quite a long time. We did not spread it. It was done by the one who bought the CD from J. Pohl. One shoudl search for the "pirates' among the member of his forum.