Sweden recognise ‘Church of Kopimism’ as a religion: file sharing for all

The Swedish people are very open minded, and they have recognised the ‘Church of Kopimism' as a religious organisation. Their government agency Kammarkollegiet have registered the Church of Kopimism around Christmas, according to a statement issued late yesterday. The group applied three times to have their religion formally recognised in Sweden and finally they were granted their wish. Their religious symbols are CTRL+C and CTRL+V, which obviously means copy and paste.

This is the only country in the world to acknowledge Kopimism officially as a religion.

The group said “For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament. Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains, and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore, copying is central for the organization and its members.”

Isak Gerson, the founder of the Church of Kopimism said that the acknowledgement could help change people's views of copying. He spoke out saying “Hopefully, this is one step towards the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution.”

The church events are interesting. No sitting in front of a religious leader who drones on for hours and hours. Instead they hold ‘kopyactings', which lets the members copy and share information with each other.

Will this legalise the sharing of copyright material? Apparently not, according to a post on TorrentFreak. “Although the formal status of the Church doesn’t mean that copyright infringement is now permitted, the Church’s founder hopes that their beliefs will be considered in future lawmaking.”

Kitguru says: Sound good? or are you still happy with your own religion?

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