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File sharing: it’s not just a way to get free stuff anymore. In Sweden, it’s now an officially recognized religion. Philosophy student Isak Gerson has tried and failed several times to get his Missionary Church of Kopimism recognized as a religion, authorities have relented. Kopimism holds as its central principal, that copying data is a sacred act.
The Church of Kopimism counts among its members roughly 3000 souls (or whatever Kopimists believe). “I think that more people will have the courage to step out as Kopimists. Maybe not in the public, but at least to their close ones,” Gerson said to TorrentFreak. This milestone does not make copyright infringement legal in Sweden, but it says a lot about the mentality of such things in the region.
Kopimism is at lest serious enough to seek official status, but it also seems more than a little tongue-in-cheek to us. CTRL+C and CTRL+V are considered sacred symbols in the Kopimist church. So, planning to convert?
Comments are closed on this article
Keith E. Whisman
January 05, 2012 at 6:35am
Can I be a member of the Jedi Church and the Pirate Church as well? Can I be Bi-religious?
livebriand
January 04, 2012 at 9:43pm
This is the one religion I've found that's actually worth believing in. All other are total bullshit in my opinion. I need to start my own religion where you get 365 days a year of holiday or something, so you never need to go to school/work/whatever.
Peanut Fox
January 04, 2012 at 11:09pm
You don't have to go to work or school. You don't need a religion to not do either of those things.
Tenhawk
January 04, 2012 at 8:02pm
No, they go to MacOS where they're tormented with the list of games they can never play.
Carlidan
January 05, 2012 at 3:06am
Now all we need is a heaven, messsiah, some prophets, set of commandments are we're all set to form an organize religion. :)
bpstone
January 04, 2012 at 7:22pm
Now I am seeing this?! (Õ<_Õ•) Holy shit I must have smoked too much. (*_*)
biggiebob12345
January 04, 2012 at 6:28pm
They don't have souls...they have MD5 checksums. Like souls they can be corrupted :)
The Corrupted One
January 04, 2012 at 6:14pm
Ha, clever bastards.
Next we will have a shoplifting church, a rape church, vandalism church.
Using a "religion" to legalize an illegal act doesn't work, it's been tried for drugs.
Tenhawk
January 04, 2012 at 7:49pm
I'm pretty sure we already HAVE rape and vandalism churches, not sure about shoplifting though. Oh, and it totally works for drugs and always has. There are several recognized religions that include some form of mind altering substances as part of their core beliefs... including communion wine in the states during the years of prohibition. And say what you want, alcohol is a drug and it was illegal to partake in those years but the constitution of the United States of America protected their religious rights.
Rape is harder to pin down, mostly because those involved don't talk, but there are a few religions where the line concerning consent is... let's call it blurry, including some recognized in the states. That's not even including the ones where it's not technically allowed, but the church will cover up and protect the rapist over the victims.
As for Vandalism... well, I could get cute here and talk about terrorists blowing the crap out of buildings, but that's treating the subject a little too lightly. That said there are several religions that endorse various acts that would legally be termed vandalism. They don't go tagging buildings all around the place, but within a narrow focus it is there.
The Corrupted One
January 04, 2012 at 8:03pm
Correct, but my point really was that it's obvious they are trying to find a loophole in copyright law...
..And that it (hopefully) doesn't work that way.
Tenhawk
January 04, 2012 at 8:08pm
I'm not sure that's the plan.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be shocked if many people joined up thinking it was, but that's not the thinking I'm seeing here.
If file sharing is protected as part of their religion, then government attempts to block file sharing sites AS A WHOLE becomes an interesting situation. Certainly, they're not protected in their rights to download the latest blockbuster movie... but if the goverment tries to block them from using a site that ALSO includes legal material... which just about every torrent site does, for example, now they have a legitimate target and a potentially powerful bat to swing at it.
It may just be me, but that's the logic behind the madness that I'm seeing
The Corrupted One
January 05, 2012 at 6:52pm
I say that the FBI has been sitting around eating donuts for too long, they should go on the offensive on Pirate Bay, screw whatever "Religion" bullshit they can pull up.
When I last checked, a religion was something used to explain what cannot be explained.
What?!!!?
Carlidan
January 05, 2012 at 6:58pm
And how you expect the FBI to do that? If I remember correctly, Pirate Bay is located in another country. I don't recall the FBI having that much power, that they can go into another country and dictate how they should run their country.
The Corrupted One
January 05, 2012 at 9:39pm
They can make an attempt to block it.
and their overseas counterparts and companies have just as many reasons to attack.
Tenhawk
January 05, 2012 at 10:03pm
A religion is a system of beliefs, not an attempt to explain the unexplainable. in the past the two were often one and the same, but that's a corelation, not causation.
As for the FBI... well, first off, as was explained, the Piratebay servers aren't in the states. Second, it is currently not in the governments power in the states to censor the internet. (See the SOPA drama for more on this), and third... they would FAIL.
Now, as to the bullshit about companies and such, not every big company is in favor of such actions. Even large content delivery companies are now beginning to realize that it's a losing battle that doesn't need to be fought.
There's an axom in leadership circles from way back. "Never give an order you know will not be obeyed."
The reason this is such an importan axom to leadership is that once you've given an order you essentially put your credibility on the line as a leader. If you give an order you KNOW won't be obeyed, you basically give those under your command an excuse to disobey again. With every increasing level of 'illegality' and 'security' companies and governments put on pirated media, always to be ignored, they erode their authority to the point where it will eventually come to a point where they have to violently enforce their will or give up.
That's not just immoral, it's bad leadership. There is not a single person on this planet with access to tv, radio, and the trappings of the 20th century who has NOT pirated music, tv, movies, and games. Not ONE single person. Including the content companies (as was recently proven, they torrent as much as anyone else), the government (again, torrent records show that various government officials torrent lots of copywrited material)...
Everyone pirates. EVERYONE.
Do not give an order you know will not be obeyed.
thetechchild
January 05, 2012 at 11:41pm
^ The cold hard truth.
This is a perfectly valid religion based on the fundamental right to information. You can't copyright a series of 1s and 0s (technically speaking, a very large number!). You can say you have, but that doesn't mean that it'll have any practical effect on pirates.
When companies wise up and fix their stupid approaches to piracy (DRMs) as opposed to providing actual value in their products that people will WANT to pay for, I'm sure we'll se profits go up thanks to piracy's viral advertising capabilities. Only the content with the least value will be pirated and go unpaid for. Truly valuable content will not only compel pirates to go and pay for the legitimate product, but encourage them to spread the word, and as we all know, viral content spreads on the Internet far faster than any other medium.
You can't make an argument that organizations should crack down on piracy, because piracy is EVERYWHERE. It is an unstoppable force of society! And unlike drugs, sex, and political corruption, it happens to be completely harmless to the average person! If content creators would simply realize that utilizing piracy as a TOOL for advertising and sharing, then they would actually benefit from what many people still currently perceive as a crime!
duncansil
January 04, 2012 at 4:47pm
Just maybe taking the user rights things to the extreme, but extremes seems to be what this conversation is all about.
How is a 4 million dollar fine for sharing a few songs online any less ridiculous?
Cooketh
January 04, 2012 at 3:39pm
This is a fucking joke, It's offensive to legitimate religious followers and institutions globally.
kamikaji
January 04, 2012 at 4:47pm
All religions are bullshit and full of lies and slander. There is no such thing as a "legitimate religion". Such a thing simply does not exist.
warptek2010
January 04, 2012 at 11:33pm
Always found atheists as complete bullshit and full of lies and slander. Just depends on ones point of view, no?
The bullshit part is this: There is no God, so by definition then, I made myself God. If I just made myself God then I am a religion of me.
That, to most people, is illegitamate.
Carlidan
January 05, 2012 at 3:04am
What the hell are you talking about Warptek? Atheists just don't believe in relgion. They don't believe they are God because they don't believe in God. If you don't know atheist means please don't use it. How are athiest full of lies, bullshit and slander? You claim they are. Yet you believe religion is all truth. Should I give examples of fabercations of religion. If anyone has really read any reglious book from begining to end knows it's a book full of contridications and doesn't even makes sense.
biggiebob12345
January 04, 2012 at 6:28pm
@kami Why are you so insecure that you feel the need to bash what other people chose to believe in?
MaximumMike
January 04, 2012 at 5:35pm
All opinions like yours are worthless. There is no legitimate reason to piss on others' beliefs. Such statements are only made by complete morons.
Tenhawk
January 04, 2012 at 7:54pm
You do realize that you just 'pissed on his beliefs' right?
Just for the record, by your own standards that makes you a moron AND a hypocrite.
MaximumMike
February 03, 2012 at 10:12am
You obviously don't understand sarcasm. And by my standard that makes you the biggest moron here.
mini6090
January 04, 2012 at 8:45pm
@Tenhawk - This was bound to become a religious fight to the death. My belief is that nothing exists, but at least this "religion" is based on something we know is actually real (meaning copyrights do exist). Either way, thank you for stating the absolute obvious. Although the above comment was said with extreme hate and angst, it's his belief and he has the right to have it.
MaximumMike
February 03, 2012 at 11:08am
There was no angst and hate in my post, only sarcasm - something else that is "actually real," even if you choose to ignore it.
Tenhawk
January 04, 2012 at 9:03pm
@mini6090 I neither questioned his beliefs nor his right to have them. Merely held him up to his own standards.
MaximumMike
February 03, 2012 at 10:25am
You don't know what my standard is, nor are you intellectually competent to hold me to it. My previous statement was sarcasm. If you had better than a fourth grade education you might surmise that the meaning of my statement was that it is wrong to make broad and sweeping generalizations about the beliefs of others, especially when those statements are unfounded and unsupported. My statements were patterned after the original poster's statements and purposely violated their own rules, as a demonstration of why such statements are wrong. Hence the sarcasm. Anyone with the intelligence you pretend to have would have understood this and moved on, instead of slapping himself on the back for making a witless retort such as yours. What's even worse is that you needed this explanation.
afunyun
January 04, 2012 at 4:43pm
Why lol they all believe in bullshit according to the other religions
why can't these people do it too?
draconis123
January 04, 2012 at 4:16pm
I find you offensive for finding me offensive.
But really, isn't this pretty much how religions are started? Besides, what denotes a "legitimate" religion.
someuid
January 04, 2012 at 4:04pm
I would consider those religious people who feel offended by this to not be very religious.
phoenixjc
January 04, 2012 at 3:50pm
Actually I find legitimate religious followers and institutions to be offensive.
=)
alexw1234
January 04, 2012 at 9:00pm
Good damnit! This bickering in the comments is stupid! Just stop! You guys can each have your own opinions, and that is fine, but this just plain stupid. I mean really, at least 10 out of the 25 comments on the article are you guys bickering. Almost as bad as the spammers.
