A new religious sect that includes file sharing as part of its tenants has been recognized as an official religion in Sweden.
The Swedish government acknowledged the Missionary Church of Kopimism as a religion. The group has been in Sweden since 2010 and was founded by members of the Young Pirates, the youth movement of Sweden’s controversial Pirate Party. The group boasts more than 3000 members.
The Kopimi (pronounced “copy me”) movement has tried twice before to get official recognition, but had been rejected. The Swedish government finally recognized the Church of Kopimism after it formalized its mode of prayer and meditation. According to the group’s website, Kopimism sees information as holy and copying and file sharing as a sacred acts akin to prayer. The website has been unavailable since it broke the news of its religious status. A message urged those interested in joining to “come back in a couple of days when the storm has settled.”
Despite Kopimism official status, copyright infringement remains illegal in Sweden.
The move in Sweden comes amid the debate over Rep. Lamar Smith’s hotly-debated Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which is currently making its way through Congress and would, if passed, give U.S. authorities wide-ranging right to shut down or block websites, including international sites, deemed to being facilitating copyright infringement.
Not as good as the Jedi religion that pranksters almost started in the UK.
As I recall the Jedi religion did get recognized in Australia. I could be remembering wrong.
Still this is more than slightly silly.
I’m not sure if it’s officially recgonized by the UK Govt, but 2001 was the first time their census results had people self-identifying as Jedi Knight… I think it was in 2000 or 2001.
Of course, it spread virally after that 🙂
Still, that’s quite imaginative..
At first I laughed and then I cried. It just goes to show me, at least, that this is just like a lot of other crazy religions, including so called main stream, that use religion to justify bad behaviour. God Help Us all from these wack jobs.
I think you mean tenets, not tenants, unless file sharers are renting space in the sect.
or possibly the alternate (and apparently now acceptable) tenents, but definitely not tenants
Though they are probably file-sharing Dr. Who episodes featuring David Tennant.