Couple refuse to pay fine for festival live sex

[gradysfalcon]

A couple fined for copulating on stage as 4,000 fans applauded and a band played on at a Norwegian rock festival said they would not pay.

"No, that fine is ridiculous, there'll be no fine here, there'll be a legal process and the whole shebang," Tommy Hol Ellingsen told TV2 television on its online news site.

Mr Ellingsen, 28, and his 21-year-old girlfriend Leona Johansson were called up on stage during The Cumshots concert by the lead singer, where they had sex for almost 10 minutes as the crowd cheered and the band played on.

Police later fined them 10,000 kroner ($AU2,034) each.

The on-stage sex at the Quart music festival in the southern city of Kristiansand made it to the top of the country's news headlines.

It was later discovered to be a pre-arranged public relations gimmick to raise money for the couple's environmental group, which raises money for organisations working to protect the rain forest.

Among other things, the couple have launched a pornographic website where visitors to the site can pay a monthly subscription to view videos of them making love.

Organisers of the Quart festival had earlier forced a Korean artist who planned to film couples having sex inside a tent on the festival grounds to cancel the shoot at the last minute, media reports said.

Having sex in public is illegal in Norway and carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison.

The five Cumshots band members were also fined 10,000 kroner each.

Organisers of the festival have meanwhile said they were disappointed that the sex stunt had overshadowed the music.