File-sharing recognized as religion in Sweden

I’ve written a couple things on this blog over the years about the Pirate Party, the global political movement founded by Swedish software entrepreneur and 2011 global thinker Rick Falkvinge, which aims to legalize file-sharing and do away with current intellectual property laws.  But the Swedes have now taken it to a whole new level, ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

I've written a couple things on this blog over the years about the Pirate Party, the global political movement founded by Swedish software entrepreneur and 2011 global thinker Rick Falkvinge, which aims to legalize file-sharing and do away with current intellectual property laws. 

I’ve written a couple things on this blog over the years about the Pirate Party, the global political movement founded by Swedish software entrepreneur and 2011 global thinker Rick Falkvinge, which aims to legalize file-sharing and do away with current intellectual property laws. 

But the Swedes have now taken it to a whole new level, as the file-sharing news website TorrentFreak reports:

Since 2010 a group of self-confessed pirates have tried to get their beliefs recognized as an official religion in Sweden. After their request was denied several times, the Church of Kopimism – which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols – is now approved by the authorities as an official religion. The Church hopes that its official status will remove the legal stigma that surrounds file-sharing. […]

Philosophy student Isak Gerson is such a religious file-sharer, and in an attempt to protect his unique belief system he founded The Missionary Church of Kopimism in 2010. In the hope that they could help prevent persecution for their beliefs, the Church then filed a request to be officially accepted by the authorities.

After two failed attempts, where the Church was asked to formalize its way of praying or meditation, the authorities finally recognized the organization as an official religion. The Church’s founder is ecstatic about this news, and hopes that it will motivate more people to come forward as ‘Kopimists’.

Can’t wait for the "creeping Kopimism" conspiracy theories.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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