Punknews.org FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Punknews is run by volunteer music fans, but since everyone (we hope) is leading a full life away from their computers that offline-reality often bumps up against our online world. Here's what you should know:

Aubin Paul is a third owner of Punknews Records, which is distributed by Epitaph Records. He also contributes a distillation of the Punknews news coverage to AMP Magazine. Aubin does various IT work for a number of clients. He's also from Toronto, where the army has to unbury them from snowstorms that the rest of Canada wouldn't so much as blink at, and as a result strives to keep the military happy.

Adam White is a third owner of Punknews Records, which is distributed by Epitaph Records. He works in IT, and has been known to slant his punk news in a way that makes you want to purchase consulting services. Being from Niagara Falls, Adam suffers from a psychosis in which the War of 1812 never ended, and as such gives what's probably an unfair amount of coverage to Canadian bands that only he cares about. He's also in love with Neko Case, but she won't return his calls. A religious devotion to Neil Young is rumoured.

Justin August has been known to do some contract work for Fat Wreck Chords. He's also a filthy bearded hippy, and as such his defacto anti-hippy bias is weaker than the rest of the staff. He's also in love with Jolie Holland, and if memory serves, Nina Simone.

Brian Shultz is fairly conflict free, but wears a camouflage choo-choo train hat a fair bit, so there's something he must be hiding from us.

Meg Reinecker collects a paycheck from Hot Topic, but is fairly low in the food chain and as such has no say in their weapons manufacturing wing nor their biological warfare unit.

We all love Québec and wish we could allow everyone to participate. Unfortunately, the rules around contests in Québec are very strict and complying with those rules would be very expensive for us.

Here are just some of the laws for running contests in Québec.

• Register the sweepstakes rules and all advertisements used to promote the contest with the Quebec government at least 30 days ahead of the sweepstake's launch.
• Pay a fee of 10% of the sweepstake's value.
• Agree to allow the government of Quebec to mediate any lawsuits arising from the contest.
• Follow strict guidelines about the contents of the sweepstakes rules.
• Allow the Quebec government to determine if the sweepstake may be changed or canceled once it has started.
• File a written report after the contest has concluded, attesting that the prizes have been delivered or attempted to be delivered.

In short, it's nothing personal and nothing against all the great friends we have in Québec, it's just that the law makes it prohibitive for sites like Punknews.org to run contests while complying with the legal system.